Flesh to Burn: “The Wicker Man” at 50

Alan Corley
Fanfare
Published in
10 min readMay 23, 2023

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StudioCanal (edit by author)

“Do sit down, Sergeant. Shocks are so much better absorbed with the knees bent.”

Early in our relationship, I forced my boyfriend to watch both The Devils and The Wicker Man, just so he was informed on what he was getting himself into. Long story short, we’re still together, and he preferred The Wicker Man to The Devils (in his words: “it made more sense”), but safe to say he has not become an acolyte of Summerisle. Myself, I have been a devoted fan, even before I saw it. For many years The Wicker Man was akin to a legend, a film talked about on the margins, and difficult to see. It was a film whose production had become mythology, whose reception and content had placed it as one of the strangest ever made. Before I finally had a chance to see it, it existed only in still images and clips. When I finally had the opportunity to see it, it was in its “Final Cut” version, and although I have since seen all three versions numerous times, this remains the best version.

Here I offer a spoiler warning, but the film’s plot is so disseminated into pop culture that it almost seems unnecessary.

Devout Christian policeman Sergeant Howie (played by Edward Woodward) has been called to the remote Scottish island of Summerisle, known for its apples, to investigate the disappearance of a young

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Usually writing about old movies — BA English & Drama — MPhil Film Studies