Eye Candy #250 - "The Wicker Man" (2006)

The Wicker Man (2006): A remake of a genuine creepy horror B-movie curio from the 1970’s, with murderous hippies singing and dancing to songs of their pagan gods while burning a man to death. Real heartwarming stuff, with a heavy dose of weirdness. This take is helmed by Neil Labute. Nicholas Cage is damaged police officer, Edward Maulis, haunted by the death of a girl killed in a traffic stop he was presiding over He is asked by his ex-fiancee to find her missing daughter, on a private island off the coast of Maine inhabited by modern day pagans who are almost all women. He almost instantly finds himself hip-deep in all sorts of odd goings-on, surrounded by a community that is wholly uncooperative in his search for the missing girl. This film can’t hold a candle to the original. First, this seems like another entry into Neil Labute’s “Low Opinion of Women” subgenre. Two: the police officer in the original, he’s a Christian zealot from the get-go and his rejection of the pagans seems a much more natural lead-in to his fiery end. He is as extreme in his own right as the residents of Summersisle, and that was the point. But the zealotry here is replaced by mere obsession. Thirdly: Casting. Cage is totally miscast in the role of Maulis. He seems awkward and unbelievable in the role, and is largely unsympathetic (not to mention pigheaded and stupid). Also, Ellen Burstyn as Sister Summersisle, head of the pagans, doesn’t approach anywhere near the level of full-tilt weeeeird that Christopher Lee brought to the role of Lord Summersisle in the original. You expect him to lead a cult, you can’t believe she actually could. Hell, Lee’s teeth were spookier than Burstyn in total. Leelee Sobieski is wasted in a do-nothing supporting role. Even Molly Parker, who I have a mild crush on, couldn’t save this one. Why can’t the current crop of filmmakers leave some of the classics alone? Woodchuck sez, “Not an improvement over the original.”