Lousy Lottery 34: The Wicker Man (no, not the good one)
Welcome, friends, to the Lousy Lottery! Here’s how it works. First, I post four movies to a poll on Twitter. Fans vote to pick which movie to make me watch that week. I watch it, review it and spread the word about an amazingly awful, terribly terrific b-horror flick.
This is week 34! This week we revel in the Cagey goodness with 2006’s bizarre masterpiece The Wicker Man!
This movie has been on my to-do list for years and years. I’m honestly not sure why I haven’t seen it. It’s generally hated, reviled by most and I swear I have never met a single person who likes it. Sounds like the perfect Mr. Josh movie, right?! I agree. So, this week, I thought I’d do things a little differently. I want you to experience watching the movie with me. We’re all locked away, sheltering in place and don’t get to watch flicks together, so let’s simulate it. I’m going to write this review in real time, as I watch it. I’ll comment on the movie, just like if you and I were just sitting down on the couch after a bowl or two of weed, chatting as we watch. Ready? Let’s do this.
Ok, normally I wouldn’t comment on the title sequence or anything, but that bug for Millennium Films looks like something from a straight-to-VHS movie from the mid-to-early ‘90s.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, this movie is directed by Neil LaBute?! The Tony-nominated playwright?! The multi-award-winning filmmaker behind In the Company of Men?! We haven’t gotten past the goddamn credits and my mind is blown.
Wait, Ellen Burstyn’s in this too?! How many Oscar winners can one cram into a clunker?
We get our first appearance by the incredible Nic Cage and he’s in a super cool, old school motorcycle jacket and is apparently a motorcycle cop. I’m loving it already.
He’s just writing tickets and going about his business. Someone drops a dolly out of a station wagon and ol’ Nic just leans over, scoops it up and pulls the grocery getter over. The little twit just looks Nic in the eye and throws the damn doll right back out.
As soon as he walks over to grab it, the station wagon is struck by a truck and bursts into flames. He tries to rescue the little girl out of the car, who seems both fine and to not give a single fuck, when the car explodes.
Cut to pill-popping, depressed Nic in a sweatsuit who is, for some reason, watching old Westerns on TV. Why is it always obscure old TV shows? Does it make it more palatable internationally? Or is it just cheaper because they’re public domain or something?
The dialogue in this movie is so strange. A friend from the force comes over and the dialogues goes like this, verbatim.
“Hey, they’re wondering if you’re gonna retire or something.“
“You wanna sit down?”
(friend picks up a pill bottle) “That stuff bothering you?”
“Some. You don’t have to stay, I don’t really need visitors.”
“So, you gonna shoot for detective now or what?”
“So, they still haven’t found the bodies from that car, huh?”
“Nah, the car isn’t even registered to anyone.“
“But who were those people?”
“I don’t know. They never know.”
*and conversation over*
Like, who talks to each other like this? So strange. That stuff bothering you? Nope, I watched a child burn to death right in front of me, why would that bother me? The hell?
Suddenly he’s reading a letter that’s written in very flowery script and sealed with wax like it’s from the damn middle ages. It seems a woman, from, what, maybe 1530, has written him a letter saying her daughter is missing and she’s run out of options.
Next we learn there’s no stamp on the envelope and no one knows where it came from. Oh, and the lady lives on an island in an ‘Amish-lifestyle’ commune apparently.
Oh, wow, and we also just learn he not only knows this lady, but used to be engaged to her. Shit’s just coming out of left field!
He conveniently can’t call her, that whole Amish thing, so he’s off to this random island in the “Pacific Northwest.”
Flashbacks of the crash on the boat ride (wait, boat ride?) to the “Pacific Northwest”
He’s not welcomed when he gets there and it seems all the locals on the island are old and mostly ladies. More strange dialogue. “Have you seen this girl?” “I do not know this child.” Ok?
There’s just so little explanation about anything.
He gets strange looks for doing anything. Like, can one suspiciously take a drink? Sure seems like it.
He comes all this way to meet Willow, finds her only for her to say nothing to him and walk off.
They apparently can’t speak openly and meet to chat by some cliffs.
Oh, hey, his name is Edward!
Apparently she has much to warn him about, but can’t explain or tell him anything. He asks questions, but gets no answers. Although we do learn it’s not his daughter.
He kills a bee and the locals act like he just took a dump in the middle of the bar and then later we see him taking out epi-pens from his luggage. Surely this won’t come up again, eh?
And now it seems there are a couple of blind old twins who say everything in unison like some old horror movie trope. It seems it’s time for their “death and rebirth” and time for the return of the ‘wicker man.’ Oooh, intriguing.
Oh, hey, it’s Leelee Sobieski!
And now he’s having flashbacks to the flashback on the boat? I mean, isn’t that just like showing a clip of a previous scene…
Oh, look, it’s the little girl! And ol’ Ed runs off after her into the dark woods and then a creepy barn without a thought. Jesus, this guy sure can’t read a room. It’s like he’s portraying all the horror stereotypes in one role.
Suddenly there are pigeons, like, everywhere. What purpose do they serve the story? Any time animals are used in a film scene it means a ton of time, work and expense went into doing so. It’s not like those were wild pigeons. So, why go to all that trouble for nothing? I mean, it’s not like pigeons are scary.
Suddenly he’s eating breakfast and in a suit. Nothing says proper attire for an island in the pacific like a dark blue suit.
God, I just don’t get the decisions on dialogue. Here’s another example. He sees Sister Honey chopping wood and says, “hey, I meant to ask you earlier, have you seen this girl?” She laughs, shrugs, laughs again, rolls her eyes. He says, “so, no?” She laughs again and says nothing, doesn’t even nod or shake her head.
He says, “So, uh, what’s happening the day of tomorrow?”
“You mean, the day after tomorrow? That’s kind of a strange way of putting it.”
“Yeah, I suppose, I thought the other was a local expression.”
“Let’s see, the day after tomorrow would be May the 2nd. Nothing I know of.”
“No, I mean, tomorrow, what is happening tomorrow?”
“I told you”
“You did?”
“When you leave, take me with you”
Aaaaaaaaand scene. Seriously. He just turns and walks off like she’d said goodbye. I mean, seriously, who the fuck talks this way? Is this like a style decision or something? Alright, guys, here’s how we’re gonna approach this, everyone talks to each other like they have a secret that they assume the other person knows about but no one ever finds out or explains, got it?
Now Ed walks into a one-room schoolhouse plucked straight from the set of Little House on the Prairie and here’s what the teacher is teaching, “Daisy, can you tell us what man represents in his purest form?” Despite calling on someone named Daisy, the whole class raises their hand, she points to another set of twins who answer in unison, “phallic symbol, phallic symbol.” Oh, sure, uh huh, why not? The writing in this fucking movie, man.
Just as weird, Ed walks into the room, starts questioning the kids, erases the chalkboard and flipping though books. “You’re all little liars!” Guy’s got a hell of a way with kids, really. And who doesn’t just barge into schoolrooms like this. Typical male. Likely why this island has so few of them.
Suddenly the teacher shows that everyone’s lying when they’re saying they don’t know who the girl is, they know, but the girl’s dead, she burned to death in an accident. Oh, uh, ok. Surely there’s more to it, right? Oh, nope, he’s leaving. No follow up. Ok.
He asks for directions of a woman who looks exactly like the teacher. “Wait, aren’t you Sister Rose? Didn’t I just speak to you?” “No, I’m Sister Thorn.” Oh, alright, no more questions apparently, that explains it!
Ed finds the girl’s grave and Willow, the mom, shows up and says that’s not her daughter. But she’s not explaining anything. He finally asks some ‘why’ questions but she just changes the subject or answers in odd vagaries. Like this exchange.
“Who is Sister Summersisle, that name keeps coming up?”
“She’s everything, everything you see, all of it, we all live in her shadow, especially me. You think I’ve lost it, I haven’t, I can’t let them do this to me.”
“What is it you’re not telling me?”
“Forgive me.”
“Forgive you for….I’m lost.”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m worried, you know?”
“No, I do not know. I do not know that our daughter is ok.”
“You’re telling me I’m Rowan’s father?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not right”
And he walks off.
It’s like there are no completed thoughts in this movie. Just vague half thoughts.
For example, he’s looking at Rowan’s (the little girl) room and inspecting it, when he suddenly says he needs the radio from the plane and runs off to the docks. Uh, sure, alright.
He waits on the dock, then hears something below it, dives in to find Rowan dead under the dock, then suddenly he’s on the dock again in his suit, dry again somehow, he drops her, she vanishes, he yells “goddamnit” and takes some pills. Again, just half completed thoughts. It’s like ideas just pinging around in a can, bouncing off this way and that.
And now he’s breaking into the doctor’s house. In fairness, he hasn’t gotten much info by asking. Inside he finds a picture of rowan taking part in some festival/ritual last year and there’s a note that they had the worst harvest year on record.
With this, he confronts Willow who continues to just give odd, vague answers like as though she’s just waking up from a dream she can’t remember. My head would’ve exploded from confusion and frustration by now.
And now they’re kissing? I mean, nothing gets me hotter than talking about a missing child, for sure.
More random shit happens that seems to have no bearing on the story.
It seems he’s somehow found a bike. That’s nice.
And he’s accidentally wandered into a field full of beehives and keeps knocking over one after another like he’s Mr. Bean.
He can’t quite get to his epi-pen and has another flashback. And, boom, he’s in a beautiful bed in Sister Summersisle’s house. Uh, sure, why not.
Ellen Burstyn!
God, everyone in this movie is so fucking nonchalant. Like, this weird mixture of aloof and uninterested about everything, even missing kids, murder, it doesn’t matter.
We finally get a bit of explanation. Sister Summersisle explains that they come from Scotland. They left when society became too patriarchal and began making women subservient. So, they left and landed on the East Coast and eventually made it all the way to the farthest reach of the West Coast before they found a place where they could be removed from society and society would be removed from them. They’ve stayed ever since.
Is Ed the protagonist? He yells at and lectures her about how he comes from ‘normal society’ and not some matriarchal one. I gotta say, I don’t love this guy.
And now he’s digging up Rowan’s grave in the middle of the night. Seems super reasonable.
In the grave he finds the doll from the beginning of the movie. True to form, he just kinda picks it up and walks off. Like, oh yeah, here’s that doll.
He opens another grave and there’s a stairwell in it, which of course he goes down without hesitation or question.
At the bottom is water and, you guessed it, Ed dives right in and starts swimming around. If I opened a grave and inside was a stairwell leading down to water, of course the first thing I’d do is jump right in. Wouldn’t you?
To get into the water, he had to jump down into a little hole and someone closed the hole behind him. Geez, maybe it was a bad idea to dive in after all.
Willow saves him and somehow between getting out of the hole and walking back out of the grave his suit dried!
Dry suit or no, Ed’s lost it. Now he’s running around, yelling at people, pointing guns, searching houses, kicking in doors and just generally being a dick.
He finds the pilot dead and weirdly like stuffed and sewn like a doll. For some reason, three women in animal masks pop up in unison, stare at him, then pop back down out of site. Almost like the movie randomly became You’re Next for a half second.
The festival begins and he randomly punches a lady for her costume. While he’s putting it on, Leelee Sobieski attacks him. Why? Oh, who fucking knows.
He puts on a bear costume and is running around the festival in a way that makes it super obvious he’s not one of the sisters. Yet, somehow no one notices and we get the best moment of the whole movie, when Nicholas Goddamn Cage in a full bear costume single-punch knocks one of the sisters out cold. I may watch that moment again in a couple times real quick.
He punched the sister, because, well, it’s Rowan! She’s tied to a pole and Willow is right there. Wait, huh? It seems the whole community was duping ol’ Ed. They needed him to come of his own accord to be a sacrifice. The kid was never the target, he was.
Damn, turns out this plan was put into motion a long time ago. Willow is Summersisle’s daughter and they planned their relationship and Rowan and all of it from the start. Now that’s how you do a long con! Although, I’m not sure how they knew they’d have a failing crop so long ago or that he’d be the cure so many years later. But, still!…
As the women grab him and start the fantastically gory process, he starts spitting at them and screaming “you bitches!” I guess killing him with the worst CGI bees I’ve ever seen will somehow bring back their flailing honey crops. So, not sure how great that is a reason for murder, but damn this fucking guy. I won’t be too sad about seeing the ladies succeed and him die. Just sayin’.
This movie has really painted itself into a corner. I mean, if he lives, what was the point of it all? If he dies, well, what was the point of it all?
Like, is there really a conflict? Is there a sort of redemption?
I’m not so sure. The story basically goes, they had a plan, they executed it, now he’s dead. The end.
When they show the wicker man ablaze, it’s abundantly clear there’s no one in it.
And suddenly it fades to black and says “for JOHNNY RAMONE” just like that. Wait, what?
Wow, I don’t know what to think, how to feel or even what the point of all that was. It just felt as though, well, that just happened. This movie is something. Now I understand how and why it didn’t sit well with audiences. It’s just so vague, obtuse and unnecessary. There was not a single character that was relatable or even sympathetic. None of it made sense and seemingly purposefully so. It’s just bizarre enough to where I’d recommend it, but I don’t think I’ll ever be watching it again.
Thanks for coming along with me on this journey. I hope you got some laughs out of it and scratched your head right along with me. Also, don’t forget to see what’s coming next in the Lousy Lottery. Make sure you tune into Twitter later today and vote for Lousy Lottery 35! My handle is @MrJosh79, look for it and don’t forget to vote!
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