Review: 'The Wicker Man: The Official Story of the Film'

Like most true cult films, The Wicker Man has certain trappings of a particular genre (horror), but it's actually pretty hard to categorize. For most of its run time, it would be better classified as a police procedural or mystery. Midway through production, director Robin Hardy declared it was a musical. Indeed, The Wicker Man is all these things, which is just one reason it is such a unique viewing experience. However, it can also be frustrating since it exists in so many forms due to a less than respectful release that saw it get chopped to pieces to play second-fiddle to Nic Roeg's Don't Look Now, with which it joined forces for an admittedly excellent double feature in 1973. Complicating the story further, there are questions as to how much it was influenced by David Pinner's novel Ritual, how much it was auteured by Hardy (whom many of the folks involved in the film describe as barely competent), and how miserable the cold, combative, and stressfully compressed shoot was.

Review: 'Faith Horror: Cinematic Visions of Satanism, Paganism and Witchcraft, 1966-1978'

As fun, transgressive, and quick-to-offend as horror can be, it is often quite conservative at heart. Just think of the means Van Helsing employs to give Dracula the willies: the crucifix. Christianity is often used as a simplistic symbol of good in horror--the supernatural cure for supernatural evil. 

However, religion's role can be more complex, or at least less direct, than this, as LMK Sheppard argues in her new book Faith Horror: Cinematic Visions of Satanism, Paganism and Witchcraft, 1966-1978. While the surface conflict of many horror movies appears to be a matter of good/christianity vs. evil/satanism-paganism-witchcraft, the core conflict may actually be one of faith vs. commerce (Rosemary's Baby) or predestination vs. free will (The Omen). In the case of The Wicker Man, that conflict might not actually be between the film's two obvious opponents-- christian cop Sgt. Howie and the pagans of Summerisle--but between the faith of both of those adversaries vs. the secular reality that leaves all of them clearly screwed at the end of the picture.

I usually avoid academic studies like Faith Horror because I'm no longer in college and I often find this kind of analysis to be merely theoretical--it rarely deepens my appreciation for the topic discussed or convinces me that the author's theory is truly essential for a meaningful understanding of that topic. While this was the case with several of the chapters in Faith Horror, chapters such as the ones on Rosemary's Baby and The Wicker Man provided enough snacks for thought that I found the overall discussion worthwhile. A quotation from a New York Times article by Leonard Wolf that Sheppard quotes in her book's introduction sums up why I, an absolutely devoted non-believer, am so fascinated with all of horror's supernatural hogwash better than anything I'd ever read. The book also contains the best typo I've ever read, one that makes Rowan Morrison, the missing girl of The Wicker Man, seem like some sort of unholy hybrid beast born in the Joke Wall from Laugh-In.

Review: 'The Wicker Man: The Original Soundtrack Album' on Transparent Yellow Vinyl

What The Rocky Horror Picture Show is to glam, The Wicker Man is to Wyrd folk, that quaint and creepy strain of Olde English acoustic music that conjures images of Maypole reveries and pagans in animal masks. Robin Hardy's enchantingly eerie 1973 film is the paragon of folk horror pictures, and Paul Giovanni's outrageously bawdy and outrageously beautiful songs such as "Gently Johnny" and "Willow's Song" are as integral to the spell it casts as "Time Warp" is to Rocky Horror's. Any fan of Hardy's film would not be caught in a flaming wicker man without a copy of its soundtrack album. 

A Wicker Man soundtrack album first arrived via Trunk Records 25 years after the film's theatrical debut. The tracks on that version were pulled directly from the film's soundtrack, and though the disc was very complete (right down to the inclusion of lots of sound effects and dialogue bits), the sound quality was hardly optimal. It was not until 2002, when Silva Screen Records paraded out the original master tapes for eleven tracks, that The Wicker Man really sounded up to snuff on CD and vinyl. A clutch of the most essential pieces of music not found on the original master tapes were included as pulled-from-the-film bonus tracks on both editions.

Unfortunately, those bonuses are absent from Silva Screen's latest reissue of The Wicker Man: The Original Soundtrack. Like each reissue since 2013, only the pristine-sounding eleven from the original masters are present. That means you don't get the mesmerizing version of Robert Burns's "The Highland Widow's Lament" that opens the long edit of the film, but you do get such outrageously bawdy and outrageously beautiful things as Giovanni's "Gently Johnny", "Fire Leap", "Corn Rigs", "Maypole", and the utterly spellbinding "Willow's Song", which contains some of the rudest lyrics that do not resort to expletives. You get the voices of Giovanni, stars Christopher Lee and Diane Cilento, and Lesley Mackie subbing for Britt Ekland on "Willow's Song".

Britt, however, does appear in all her own bawdy glory on a newly designed inner sleeve complete with libretto. The gatefold still features conductor Gary Carpenter's notes from Silva Screen's 2002 edition of the soundtrack, but the design of it and the front cover are new. So is the use of transparent, yellow vinyl, which has a well-centered spindle hole and is pretty quiet. The music sounds as warm and unsettlingly inviting as ever. 

366 Days at the Drive-In: Day 214

The Date: May 1

The Movie: The Wicker Man (1973)

What Is It?: The king of folk horror flicks, The Wicker Man is a heady swirl of fun-loving paganism and spellbinding folk music. Its unmatched atmosphere makes it worth watching over and over even though its mystery is such a huge part of the story.

Why Today?: I won’t spoil that mystery. I’ll just say that it is solved on May Day.

Farewell, Christopher Lee

Very sad news to report today: Christopher Lee, the British actor best known for his embodiment of Hammer horror, died last Sunday of heart failure. Of course, Lee's 93 years were richly spent. He starred in some of the most successful film series of all time--not just Hammer's Gothic horrors that found him playing Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, and the Mummy-- but also Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, James Bond's The Man with the Golden Gun, and the Star Wars prequels. On imdb, Lee has an extraordinary 278 credits, and he remained active right into this year, most recently doing voice-over work in Raul Garcia's yet-to-be-released animated anthology of Poe adaptations, Extraordinary Tales. That is a fitting end to a career steeped in classic chills, and one so dependent on the actor's marvelously distinctive bass intonation. Despite the rich wealth of Christopher Lee movies already in existence (my personal favorites include Dracula, The Wicker Man, The Curse of Frankenstein, and The City of the Dead), I will miss seeing him in another one.

Review: 'Dust on the Nettles: A Journey Through the British Underground Folk Scene 1967-72'

While the American hippies were digging up the blues and country roots buried in their home soil, their British counterparts were getting back in touch with their own past. Thus, archaic ballads, weird legends, and a creepy Gothic sensibility came billowing out of the cauldron that some branded “acid folk.” The endless Jerry Garcia jams yawning across the pond could only sound staid and boring in comparison.

Farewell, Ingrid Pitt

Ingrid Pitt only starred in a handful of horror films, but she made such an indelible impression in The Vampire Lovers, The House That Dripped Blood, The Wicker Man, and Countess Dracula that she is rightfully remembered as the definitive actress of British Horror. Pitt is primarily regarded as a vampiric sex symbol, but she was also a nuanced actress who brought liveliness, wry wit, and a disarming lack of self consciousness to her performances. Born in Poland, she survived the concentration camps to become the face of Hammer Pictures in the '70s as Elizabeth Bathory in Countess Dracula and Carmilla Karnstein in The Vampire Lovers. She was as adoring of her fans as they were of her, hosting an annual gathering of her fan club at a restaurant in London's Polish Centre. Pitt died of heart failure on November 23, two days after she turned 73.

Ten Terrible Scenes in Otherwise Terrific Terror Movies!

There’s some old story about how master makers of Persian rugs were always sure to tie one knot incorrectly to keep their work from achieving perfection. I never understood this. You’re making a rug, it’s awful nice, why not just make the best damn rug you can make? Perhaps I don’t possess a poetic enough soul to suss the sense in the whole “one bad knot” approach to making art, which sets me apart from the creators of some of the greatest horror films. Movies such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bride of Frankenstein, and Psycho contain flaws that keep them just a hair’s breadth from achieving absolute perfection. So let’s take a look at the blunders in those great films and seven others in Psychobabble’s Ten Terrible Scenes in Otherwise Terrific Terror Movies!

October 28, 2009: The Eleven Most Memorable Musical Moments from Monster Movies!

Well, kids, Halloween season is winding down, which means I’ll soon be folding Rock & Roll posts back in among the horror nuggets. To make the transition just a little bit smoother I’ve cobbled together a post that focuses on both sides of Psychobabble’s Jekyll and Hyde persona: monster movies and music. So get on your death shrouds and boogie shoes, because I will now chronologically present The Ten Most Memorable Musical Moments from Monster Movies!

1. “Fort Collins Calypso Song” from I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

When RKO Studios told producer Val Lewton that his next project would have the goofy title I Walked With a Zombie, the cagey director started work on a film that was essentially an adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë classic Jane Eyre reset on a sugar plantation on the zombie-plagued island of Saint Sebastian. Filling in for Brontë’s Jane is Betsy Connell (Francine Dee), a nurse who learns that the Rand Family, for which she has come to care, has a dark past via a catchy ditty sung by Calypso legend Sir Lancelot. When the “Fort Collins Calypso Song” is first heard, Wesley Rand (James Ellison) flies into a fit of rage. Later, Sir Lancelot sings the song in a gloomier rendition aimed at Betsy. Calypso never sounded so creepy.


2. “The Headless Horseman” from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

Disney’s telling of Washington Irving’s “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” may be the most faithful version of this oft-told tale. Well, that is if you ignore Bing Crosby’s snappy songs. But why would you? For a film that isn’t generally ranked among Disney’s greatest, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad has some truly memorable musical numbers, the best of which is this complex piece in which yellow-bellied Ichabod Crane learns of the headless Hessian haunting the woods surrounding Sleepy Hollow.


3. “Once Upon a Time There Was a Pretty Fly (Lullaby)” from The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Is there a more haunting scene in film than the riverboat escape in Charles Laughton’s masterful The Night of the Hunter? Two young children flee from Demonic Preacher/Big Bad Wolf Robert Mitchum and take to a little wooden boat. Suddenly, the manic, terrifying tone shifts toward the eerily dreamy, and the little girl begins to sing a beautiful song about an escaping fly in an incongruously mature voice (actually sung by former vaudeville singer Kitty White). The journey downriver is accompanied by various tableaux that draw equally on fairy tales and wild nature: a perfectly spun spider’s web; a croaking frog. There may have never been a more transcendentally beautiful marriage of music and film as the “Once Upon a Time There Was a Pretty Fly” sequence, but special mention should also go to Mitchum’s creepy rendition of “Hymn #59” (a.k.a. “Leaning”), which he sings whenever he’s on the hunt.


4. “Willow’s Song” from The Wicker Man (1973)

A lot of viewers stumble into The Wicker Man without knowing it’s a demented pagan musical. The soundtrack is a trove of wonderful British folk songs that comment on the action of the film in unexpected ways. We get to hear Christopher Lee’s port-rich bass as he sings the rollicking “Tinker of Rye” and multiple fine songs by Paul Giovanni & Magnet. Yet no song is as evocative as “Willow’s Song”, sung by Lesley Mackie (who plays Daisy in the film) and lip-synched by Brit Ekland as she frolics in the nude in an attempt to lure Edward Woodward to his doom. Ekland’s voice is not the only phony in this scene—as she was pregnant at the time, director Robin Hardy incorporated a stunt butt to substitute for the Bride of Rod Stewart during her rear shots.

5. “Tubular Bells” from The Exorcist (1973)

William Friedkin had a bastard of a time finding an appropriate score for his little demonic possession opus The Exorcist. After violently rejecting the music he commissioned from Lalo Schifrin, who is most famous for writing the theme to “Mission Impossible”, he resorted to the needle-in-a-haystack method of hunting through random records in Warner Bros.’s music library. That’s when he happened across the yet-to-be-released Tubular Bells, a severely pretentious new age symphony by former Soft Machine bassist Mike Oldfield. Friedkin was so enamored with the creepily tinkling music that he used the first movement of “Tubular Bells, Part 1” as a running theme throughout his film, so there isn’t necessarily one moment with which the piece is best associated. But it became so powerfully linked to the blockbuster that Oldfield’s highly uncommercial album ended up selling in the neighborhood of 16 million copies throughout the world. It’s hard to believe anyone can listen to “Tubular Bells” today without conjuring up images of green vomit and spinning heads.

6. “Puttin’ on the Ritz” from Young Frankenstein (1974)

Mel Brooks was adamantly opposed to the “Puttin’ on the Ritz” dance number Gene Wilder wrote for Young Frankenstein, feeling it strayed too far from the Universal Monster Movie parody at the heart of the film. Brooks had a point, as Wilder’s Frankenstein and Peter Boyle’s Monster high-stepping to Irving Berlin’s standard seems to come out of nowhere, yet it may be the most famous scene in this most famous horror-comedy. The spectacle of Boyle answering Wilder’s lines with a yowled “Puttin’ ona riiiiiiss!” doesn’t sound like the stuff of comedy gold, but it’s the scene’s bizarro incongruity that makes it stand out among the picture’s innumerable gags.


7. “Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

The most popular Midnight Movie is also the greatest monster musical, so The Rocky Horror Picture Show has no shortage of revered songs. Still, I doubt that many of the film’s crazed followers would argue that its most supreme musical moment is this insanely catchy rocker that informs squares Brad and Janet that time-traveling ecstasy is just a pelvic thrust away. The three solo spots in the song—Riff Raff (Richard O’Brien) careening from Karloffian lugubriousness to Bon Scott screeching, Magenta (Patricia Quinn) sing-speaking like the Bride of Bela Lugosi, Columbia (Little Nell Campbell) chewing her lines like a Queens car hop—are exhilarating. It’s just a jump to the left…

8. “In Heaven (The Lady in the Radiator Song)” from Eraserhead (1977)

Few filmmakers integrate music as seamlessly into their films as David Lynch. Even the sound of steam escaping from a radiator takes on a musical quality in Eraserhead, although actual music is used relatively sparsely in Lynch’s debut feature. There are a couple of organ pieces by Fats Waller and this childlike ditty sung by Peter Ivers and lip-synched on screen by actress Laurel Near. Following the birth of his monstrous baby, Henry X (Jack Nance) starts seeking solace from Near’s tiny, puffy-cheeked figure residing in his radiator. At one point, she interrupts his nightmarish visions to emerge from the darkness and serenade him with a song essentially impelling him to commit suicide, because “In heaven, everything is fine.” It’s beautiful and haunting in execution, oddly disturbing in intent, and absolutely unforgettable.

9. “Blue Moon” from An American Werewolf in London (1981)

The film that basically gave birth to the ironic use of music, An American Werewolf in London sports a soundtrack loaded with moon-themed oldies. After Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” plays out in its entirety as David Kessler (David Naughton) nervously paces around his new girlfriend’s apartment waiting to turn into a ravenous man-dog, he settles in for the evening as Sam Cook’s version of “Blue Moon” oozes from the soundtrack. Suddenly, Kessler screams in agony as he undergoes the single greatest werewolf transformation ever conceived. The sweetness of Cook’s voice matched with the violence of Rick Baker’s werewolf effects achieves weird transcendence.

10. “96 Tears” from Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985)

The filmmakers responsible for Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye did not secure the rights to the original version of “96 Tears” by Question Mark & the Mysterians, but I will forever associate the classic garage rock anthem with this fairly decent anthology nevertheless. This somewhat generic remake by the Northern Orchestra is featured in the first and best segment of Cat’s Eye: “Quitters Inc.” James Woods plays a schlub struggling with a mean nicotine addiction. He tries a radical solution that involves his wife being placed in an electrified booth in the event he sneaks a ciggie. Of course, he does, and wifey winds up hopping and screaming to “96 Tears” in the “Cat Room.” It’s an ironic combo of disturbing torture and danceable Rock & Roll that makes for the most memorable scene in the picture.

11. “Partytime (Zombie Version)” from Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Goth-metalists 45 Grave did not write the horrifying “Partytime”—a truly depressing song about the rape and murder of a five-year old girl—for Return of the Living Dead, but surely that’s where the vast majority of folks heard it. At the behest of Orion Pictures, 45 Grave frontwoman Dinah Cancer agreed to dump the original bleak child-abuse lyrics in favor of dopey ones that are far more in step with the fun-loving zombie flick. In the film, the track plays as the dead first start rising from the grave en masse, but it’s equally memorable for its place of pride in the trailers that ran on late night TV constantly throughout the mid-‘80s. There are better songs on the Return of the Living Dead soundtrack than this goofy headbanger (contributions from the Cramps, the Damned, and TSOL), but none that better sum up the movie with the tagline “They’re back from the grave and ready to party.”