In the heart of the flames, faith meets folklore, and the scream of the sacrificed echoes through eternity.

The Wicker Man endures as a cornerstone of folk horror, its shocking finale a blaze of ritualistic terror that continues to haunt viewers decades later. This film masterfully weaves Christian piety against pagan excess, culminating in an ending that demands dissection for its layers of symbolism and cultural resonance. Revisiting that infamous conclusion reveals not just a horror payoff, but a profound commentary on belief, community, and the primal forces lurking beneath civilised facades.

  • The intricate pagan rituals of Summerisle build a deceptive idyll that traps the devout Sergeant Howie in a web of fertility myths and mockeries of his faith.
  • The wicker man’s fiery embrace symbolises ancient sacrificial kingship, fertility renewal, and the clash between monotheism and polytheistic revivalism.
  • Robin Hardy’s vision, bolstered by Christopher Lee’s commanding presence, cements the film’s legacy as a blueprint for folk horror’s unsettling blend of song, sex, and sacrifice.

Summerisle’s Siren Song: Crafting the Pagan Trap

The remote Hebridean island of Summerisle serves as the perfect stage for the film’s escalating dread, a lush paradise where Christianity finds itself utterly outmatched. From the outset, the islanders greet Sergeant Neil Howie with folk tunes and phallic maypoles, subtle signals of their pre-Christian worldview. The plot hinges on the reported disappearance of a young girl named Rowan Morrison, drawing the virginal policeman into a community that views outsiders as ripe for ritual incorporation. Every harvest festival procession, every nude procession around the phallic stones, reinforces the island’s devotion to gods of growth and bounty.

Howie’s investigation uncovers a meticulously layered deception. The locals, led by the aristocratic Lord Summerisle, fabricate Rowan’s existence and ‘death’ to lure a suitable king for sacrifice. This ruse exploits Howie’s moral outrage at their perceived sins – fornication in graveyards, ritual masturbation, school lessons on copulation – turning his piety into the very fuel for their ancient rite. The film’s synopsis builds tension through these escalating violations, each one a breadcrumb leading to the green hill where the wicker effigy awaits.

Production drew from real Scottish folklore, with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer incorporating elements from ancient texts like Frazer’s The Golden Bough, which details wicker man burnings among the Druids. Hardy shot on location in Scotland, capturing the windswept isolation that amplifies the island’s otherworldliness. The score, blending sea shanties with bawdy ballads, immerses viewers in a culture where song summons spirits and sex ensures the soil’s fertility.

This setup masterfully subverts expectations of horror. No slashers or spectres here; the terror stems from communal conviction. The islanders’ joy in their rites contrasts sharply with Howie’s mounting horror, foreshadowing his role as the fool-king whose purity will appease the gods after a failed harvest.

The Virgin Victim: Howie’s Unwitting Coronation

Sergeant Howie arrives as the epitome of 1970s British propriety, a devout Christian whose logbook entries chronicle his spiritual torment amid pagan profanities. His refusal to partake in the island’s pleasures – be it the landlord’s daughter’s advances or the schoolmaster’s anatomical lessons – marks him as the ideal sacrifice: chaste, kingly in bearing, and filled with the ‘right’ kind of life force. The ending crystallises this when, after a frantic search for Rowan, Howie discovers her alive, parading in the May Day festivities.

The revelation hits like a thunderclap. The islanders seize him, dress him in fool’s garb – hare mask, floral wreath – and hoist him atop the wicker man, a colossal woven figure stuffed with livestock. As flames lick upwards, Howie recites Psalms, denying their gods’ power even as the structure ignites. His final screams mingle with the animals’ bleats, a cacophony of defiance drowned by Summerisle’s triumphant hymn to Nut and Prajnaparamita.

This sequence demands explanation through its inversion of horror tropes. Howie believes he is the hero rescuing innocence; instead, he embodies the king to die for the land’s renewal, echoing Celtic tales of sacrificial rulers. The film posits his Christianity as just another myth, mocked by the islanders who sing of gods demanding blood for barren orchards.

Symbolically, Howie’s ascent represents the triumph of cyclical nature over linear salvation. His body, pure and unwilling, becomes the ultimate offering, contrasting the willing animals below. Viewers witness not mere murder, but a communal catharsis rooted in Bronze Age practices revived for cinematic shock.

Flames of Folklore: Unpacking the Wicker Ritual

The wicker man’s origins trace to Roman accounts of Druidic sacrifices, where criminals burned inside massive osier frames to placate deities. In the film, this pagan relic symbolises fertility’s brutal demands – death feeding life. Lord Summerisle invokes Frazerian tropes, explaining the rite’s necessity after his grandfather’s modern agricultural experiments failed, prompting a return to ancestral magic.

Howie’s sacrifice embodies the ‘king of the May’, a figure from European folk customs who weds the land’s spirit before dying to ensure bounty. The wreath and costume evoke Green Man archetypes, fertility icons carved in churches yet subverted here into horror. The fire purifies, releasing his essence to the gods, much like Beltane bonfires that cleanse and renew.

Sexuality permeates the symbolism: phallic maypoles, yonic stones, orgiastic dances all herald the equinox climax. Howie’s celibacy heightens his potency as seed for the soil, his screams a defiant semen spilled earthward. This erotic undercurrent critiques Puritan repression, positing pagan excess as life-affirming against sterile faith.

Christian iconography twists cruelly. Howie as Christ-figure, crucified in wicker; the islanders as Pharisees jeering the true messiah. Yet the film flips this – Summerisle’s gods prove ‘real’ within their cosmology, suggesting all religions demand blood, just dressed differently.

Visually, Paul Giovanni’s score swells with ‘Gently Johnny’ reprises, blending innocence and eroticism. The camera circles the blaze, flames illuminating ecstatic faces, turning horror sublime. This ending lingers because it refuses easy morality; the islanders win, their ritual vindicated by narrative logic.

Folk Horror’s Fiery Blueprint

The Wicker Man birthed folk horror’s golden age, influencing films like Kill List and Midsommar with its rural unease and ritual payoff. Released amid 1970s occult revivals, it tapped fears of countercultural paganism amid oil crises and failing harvests, mirroring Summerisle’s plight.

Cultural impact extends to music – Iron Maiden’s mascot Eddie posed with a wicker man – and academia, sparking folk horror studies. Collectors prize original posters for their maypole imagery, while Blu-rays preserve the uncut ‘Director’s Cut’ with added perversions.

Remakes faltered by softening the paganism, proving the original’s power lies in unapologetic conviction. Its ending endures as peak unease: heroism rewarded with holocaust, faith consumed by folklore.

Beyond scares, it probes belief’s fragility. Howie’s certainty crumbles not to atheism, but rival gods, challenging viewers to question their own sacred cows amid a secular age hungry for ritual.

Director in the Spotlight

Robin Hardy, born in 1932 in Surrey, England, emerged from a theatrical family, studying at Oxford where he honed his passion for cinema and folklore. After national service, he directed documentaries and theatre, transitioning to features with a flair for atmospheric dread. Hardy idolised Hitchcock and Powell, blending suspense with mythic grandeur. His career pinnacle arrived with The Wicker Man (1973), a low-budget triumph backed by British Lion Films, shot guerrilla-style in Scotland despite producer clashes that led to its initial burial under The Confederacy of Wives.

Hardy’s vision emphasised song as narrative driver, collaborating with Paul Giovanni and drawing from his playwriting roots. Post-Wicker, he helmed The Fantasist (1986), an Irish psychological thriller about a seductive stalker, praised for Moira Harris’s performance. He revisited his masterpiece with The Wicker Tree (2011), a modern sequel critiqued for lacking the original’s spark yet featuring Graham McTavish and Jacqueline Leonard in Texas fundamentalist invaders facing Scottish pagans.

Other works include TV episodes for Colditz (1972-74) and commercials, plus the short Child’s Play

(compilation influences). Hardy lectured on folklore cinema until his death in 2016 at 84, leaving unfinished projects like a third Wicker film. His legacy rests on resurrecting pagan terror for modern screens, influencing directors like Ari Aster.

Hardy’s meticulous research – poring over Frazer and Graves – infused authenticity, while his optimistic paganism tempered horror with humanity. Interviews reveal his fascination with ritual’s psychological power, viewing The Wicker Man as celebration of communal spirit over isolation.

Actor/Character in the Spotlight

Christopher Lee, born Christopher Frank Carandini Lee in 1922 in London, embodied aristocratic menace across seven decades, his 6’5″ frame and booming voice perfect for villains. Educated at Wellington College, he served in WWII special forces, surviving 11 wounds and North African campaigns. Post-war, Hammer Horror launched him as Dracula (Horror of Dracula, 1958), reprised 21 times, cementing gothic stardom.

In The Wicker Man (1973), Lee shone as Lord Summerisle, the charismatic patriarch whose velvet villainy seduces and dooms. Free from fangs, he delivered career-best nuance, blending whimsy and zealotry. Notable roles followed: Saruman in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03), Count Dooku in Star Wars prequels (2002-05), Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Fu Manchu series (1965-69), and Sherlock Holmes in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970).

Lee’s filmography spans 280 credits: The Devil Rides Out (1968) battling Satanists, The Witches (1967) occult chiller, 1941 (1979) Nazi U-boat captain, Hannie Caulder (1971) bounty hunter, voice of King Haggard in The Last Unicorn (1982), and late-career gems like Hugo (2011) for Oscar nod. Knighted in 2009, he recorded metal albums into his 90s, dying in 2015 at 93.

As Summerisle, Lee channelled his occult knowledge – he corresponded with Aleister Crowley – infusing authenticity. The role’s cult status stems from his gleeful paganism, a foil to Woodward’s rigidity, making the ending’s hymn chillingly persuasive.

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Bibliography

Frazer, J. G. (1890) The Golden Bough. Macmillan.

Hardy, R. (2001) ‘The Making of The Wicker Man’, Dark Side Magazine, 103, pp. 14-19.

Lee, C. (1977) Tall, Dark and Gruesome. Victor Gollancz.

Scovell, A. (2017) Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful and Things Strange. Auteur Publishing. Available at: https://www.authorsite.com/folkhorror (Accessed 15 October 2023).

Shaffer, A. (1978) The Wicker Man screenplay notes. Faber & Faber.

Wood, R. (1986) Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan. Columbia University Press.

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