Thursday, July 10, 2008

Wicker Man Redux

I've commented on The Wicker Man before, and the original is on now.

The Hot Fuzz vibe is intense, though the older film is spookier.

The quality of the print is good enough that it's transparently (hah!) obvious tht the naked teen girls jumping through the fire aren't naked at all.

The movie succeeds in making Edward Woodward (who also appears in Hot Fuzz) completely unsympathetic, for all his correctness. His complete humorlessness and arrogance rather offset what would normally be (to me) the off-putting chaotic pagan rituals (which were pretty common in "edgy" films of the day).

Christopher Lee has an absolutely goofy '70s haircut.

There was no way to remake it without substntial changes--and they definitely missed the boat. But since it relies so heavily on being subversive in a way that is almost completely impossible 35 years later, it's certainly understandable how they failed.

2 comments:

  1. Christopher Lee's hair, at one point, resembles the Summer Isle sun logo thingy, which I thought was kinda cool. I took a screenshot of it a while back... I should try to find it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes! At the very end.

    For the rest of the movie it looks like '70s porn actor.

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