Fear of wicker
- This is what actor Christopher Lee said: "When I read the script, I knew it was a masterpiece. It's the best movie I've ever participated in. I'm not saying the most successful, or the most important, is the best of my career. It's not a horror movie, it's a terrible movie."
They are words of the most mythical Dracula that has left the history of film, in the thread of The Wicker Man, premiered on December 6, 1973 and directed by British filmmaker Robin Hardy. The actor depicts in the film the character of an aristocrat who works in the shaman. It is one of the best British films of the 1970s, with an erotic, musical, police and, of course, terrorist character. In turn, it contains unusual elements in the genre of terror of the time, such as paganism, the Celtic mythology and the psychedelic singer-rock.
This polyhedral personality drew the attention of the amateurs to become a cult and that cult remains until today. Christopher Lee: "They didn't pay me anything, people don't believe, but I keep the contract as proof, because sometimes you only do things out of love. The shoot was a wonderful experience because I knew I was doing something amazing.” The spectator’s crazy charm is captured by the spectator through a disturbing and oneiric atmosphere, which stretches under the sun to get away from the immense canons of horror films. Director Robin Hardy faces Christian puritanism and pagan pleasure from ancient religions, and the result of this struggle is curious, disturbing and mysterious. All of this makes the great The Wicker Man, until he almost becomes a genre in his loneliness.
The Wicker Man sowed the seed of the subgenre Folk Horror together with Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968) and Blood on Satan's Claw (Piers Haggard, 1971). This triangle formed a totally British terror of birth and rural totally united to the earth. However, this subgenre surpassed the limits of the British Isles to extend to the entire planet, and is now experiencing intense revival as its followers and films are hot. This shows the premiere in 2021 of the Canadian filmmaker Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror: Dark forests and witchcraft days), documentary or Midsommar, shot in 2019 by American filmmaker Ari Aster, a cheap copy of The Wicker Man for the most passionate folkloric fear.
Paganism flames had a clear intention of director
Robin Hardy to make a horror movie with pagan dyes. “Ancient religion, which remained hidden for many centuries after Christianity, I thought it would be fun to invent a story that showed it again; paganism is an auxiliary religion, which sacrifices itself to the gods, in which they then do good things for you.”
To do so, Hardy immersed himself in readings like Robert Graves' White Goddess or James Frazer's The Golden Bough: A Study in Religion and Magic. In these readings the filmmaker knew the pagan ritual of the wicker man, a great statue made with this theme, used by the old Celtic druids to make sacrifices, as Julius Caesar gathers in his work Kommentarii (Comments on the War of Galies) of Bello Gallico. Although the existence of this ritual has been questioned by experts, the echo of the legend has never been turned off. Sleuth (Joseph L. Hardy, writer of Mankiewicz, 1972) and Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock, 1972) asked Anthony Shaffer to make the script and left the David Pinner Ritual novel to complete the text.
Isla pagana The starting
point of the film is very simple: A girl is lost on a British island. The police come to this small community to investigate their disappearance. Citizens will not see the visitor with good eyes and the agent will also have to fight in the strange and closed atmosphere of the island. As the investigation into the disappearance progresses, the police discover that there is a pagan cult of Celtic origin in which sex and hedonism live freely on the island. Thus, disappearance is only an excuse to place Christian puritanism – police – in opposition to the pagan joy – the islands – of ancient religions.
In this sense, the scene represented by Swedish actor Britt Eklan, Irlatarra in the film, and British actor Edward Woodward, police, while listening to psychedelic folk Willow's Song is very significant: Eklan dances in his bedroom, naked, to the wall, and on the other side, the police suffer suffering to maintain the temptation that reaches him across the wall in the middle of the caterpillars.
In addition to the police and the humble citizens, the story features a very eccentric and important character, represented by Christopher Lee, a local aristocrat who directs pagan rituals, a very common character in Folk Horror films, symbolizing ancient times, values and traditions, with the intention of maintaining their privileges.
Lee has participated in over 250 films, but The Wicker Man was a special job for him. And that is, beyond the musutruk working, the British actor also took over the film promotion, because the studio that produced the film, British Lion, didn't like the film. The study reduced the film and invested nothing in advertising. And the situation turned on Lee. "I called all the critics I knew and asked them to do me a favor: that they could go see the movie that was in the movie theaters, because the tickets would be paid by me. They all went to visit her without demanding payment of the entrance and praised her unanimously." The actor also funded his tour to promote the film. "We went to Baton Rouge, where the University of Louisiana was, and when the students saw it, the film took off, becoming one of the great cult movies of all time."
Rural terror
The director of The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), Piers Haggard, first used the appointment of Folk Horror in an interview published in Fangoria in 2004. He wanted to put his film outside the usual locations of previous horror films. Thus, apart from the castles that appeared in the films produced by the Hammer studio, Haggarde placed and rolled his film in the field. “I wanted to make a Oscar-Horror film, not a camp.”
Mountains or rural areas play a key role in the film, as terror often comes from land or hides underground, as is the case in Haggarden. This obsession with rural environments can be related to the philosophy of returning to earth promoted by the counter-cultural movements of the time, the pacifist and ecologist ideology of hippies and the phenomenon of alternative religions. Moreover, the writer of the film, Robert Wynne-Simmons, admitted that his writing was based on the case of the Manson family.
Another characteristic feature is the tension that occurs between small communities and foreign individuals arriving in these areas, which reflects the anxiety between old and new times and values, as explained in The Wicker Man, among others.
If we look at these traces, the boundaries of the subgenre are blurred, for example, the film Straw Dogs shot in 1971 by filmmaker Sam Peckinpah meets the requirement of the dispute between foreigners and natives, and is developed in the rural area The Texas Chainsaw Sacre, shot in 1974 by Tobe Hooper, Neck area.
However, in the latter two there is no evidence of another of the fundamental characteristics of the subgenre Folk Horror: the religious element: paganism, christianity, puritanism… For this reason, the film that best defines Folk Horror can be The Wicker Man, in addition to bringing together the aforementioned characteristics, unique in his master and infinite.
Clay of today
The Witch (2015) It's
an exciting story about witchcraft. This is a story about a family that emigrated from Europe to New England in the 17th century and is based on the beliefs and folklore of the settlers in the new territory.
Midsommar (2019) A group of
universities travels to Sweden. In Hälsingland, you know the old town of Hå rga, which celebrates the summer solstice every 90 years.
When Evil Lies (2023) Two brothers
from an unknown town find a man infected by the devil. The same evil is about to give birth.
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