Candy is dandy, but "Wicker" is quicker
No, I do not have any clue what I was going for with that title.
Saw "Wicker Man" the same day I saw the first fifteen minutes of "Crank," and...well...uh...
Hmmm....wait a minute. I'm trying to see if I remember the movie or not.
You see, that's the problem right there. I know I saw it. I remember staring at Nicholas Cage and wondering how on earth he ever became a leading man. I remember waiting for the creepy stuff to start (and waiting...and waiting...and waiting...). I remember thinking that Neil LeBute is probably the founding member of his local He-Man Woman-Hater's club.
But as for the movie itself...not so much with the remembering.
The original "Wicker Man," which starred Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward is--as you probably know--a cult classic (whatever that means nowadays). The crux of the conflict in that version was basically "My religion can kick your religion's ass." Pagan gods versus Christian God. Who's betting on the winning horse?
But this version...there was really none of that here, and that's a shame. Cage plays his typical schlubby guy, a cop who gets a letter from an old girlfriend asking him to help her find her missing daughter. So he traipses off to Summersisle in the Pacific Northwest and discovers himself, almost literally, in no-man's-land. Women are everywhere (and with the exception of Ellen Burstyn, who is absolutely beautiful, all the older women are rough-edged and ruddy-faced, while all the younger women are all dewy and nubile...what's up with that crap, LaBute?)
While watching this movie, I kept waiting for the creepy to kick in. What's this business with all the bees? Why are the men all quiet and subservient? What's with the graveyard? And those spooky photos of young girls at the Harvest Festival...surely something scary's going to happen there, right?
The answer...a big old resounding NOPE.
This movie is what you get when a non-horror writer/director thinks that any old bastard can make a scary movie. I've seen LaBute's other films, and there's nothing in his background that would even remotely lead me to believe that he would be capable of writing a good horror movie, especially one based on such a revered classic. I suspect he took the job thinking that he could add depth and sophistication to such a tired old trollop as a horror flick, and so he tried to add characterization and subtle shading and...
I'm going to have to cut myself off there. The pretention is choking me.
The fact is, LaBute used this movie (as he seems to use most of his movies) as a platform to display how horrible Non-Penised-Americans are. They'll set up communes and use men for breeding stock! They'll worship weird and unusual pagan goddesses! They'll make men subservient and use them as workhorses! Them womenfolk are just up to no good!
Leelee Sobieski's character is shoehorned into this movie for some reason to help prove the point that men just can't trust them old girls. Otherwise, she's useless--she doesn't do anything for the plot, and all she's really good for is to remind people of a young Helen Hunt, and how useful is that?
Everything that was good and cool and creepy about the original film is completely cut out of this version. It has a "men good/women evil" mentality that annoys on a major scale. Cage stumbles around looking pathetically stupid. The women of the town lumber about and sneer at the men. LaBute pulls out every old chestnut cliche of the horror movie (including the "dream within a dream" ploy...yawn) and forgets that this is supposed to be a movie about the pagan ways triumphing over the Christian way.
And the ending...holy joe...the ending...
If you've seen the original "Wicker Man," you'll probably remember how chilling the ending was, how it went on and on even under the credits. Even if you didn't like the original, you probably have to admit that the ending was memorable.
This version has a similar scene towards the end...but it's not the actual end! Instead, we cut to a modern bar somewhere off the island (obviously, because the men are drinking and laughing and the women are not sneering at them). A couple of Summersisle women are gussied up in slut gear and picking up a couple of new breeding stock and...here we go again with those wacky chicks!
Ugh. Maybe next time LaBute will spare everyone the trouble and just make ninety minutes of a guy standing on a street corner calling every woman who walks past him a bitch.
Avoid this movie. Watch the original instead. At least Christopher Lee dresses in drag and sings in it.
Saw "Wicker Man" the same day I saw the first fifteen minutes of "Crank," and...well...uh...
Hmmm....wait a minute. I'm trying to see if I remember the movie or not.
You see, that's the problem right there. I know I saw it. I remember staring at Nicholas Cage and wondering how on earth he ever became a leading man. I remember waiting for the creepy stuff to start (and waiting...and waiting...and waiting...). I remember thinking that Neil LeBute is probably the founding member of his local He-Man Woman-Hater's club.
But as for the movie itself...not so much with the remembering.
The original "Wicker Man," which starred Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward is--as you probably know--a cult classic (whatever that means nowadays). The crux of the conflict in that version was basically "My religion can kick your religion's ass." Pagan gods versus Christian God. Who's betting on the winning horse?
But this version...there was really none of that here, and that's a shame. Cage plays his typical schlubby guy, a cop who gets a letter from an old girlfriend asking him to help her find her missing daughter. So he traipses off to Summersisle in the Pacific Northwest and discovers himself, almost literally, in no-man's-land. Women are everywhere (and with the exception of Ellen Burstyn, who is absolutely beautiful, all the older women are rough-edged and ruddy-faced, while all the younger women are all dewy and nubile...what's up with that crap, LaBute?)
While watching this movie, I kept waiting for the creepy to kick in. What's this business with all the bees? Why are the men all quiet and subservient? What's with the graveyard? And those spooky photos of young girls at the Harvest Festival...surely something scary's going to happen there, right?
The answer...a big old resounding NOPE.
This movie is what you get when a non-horror writer/director thinks that any old bastard can make a scary movie. I've seen LaBute's other films, and there's nothing in his background that would even remotely lead me to believe that he would be capable of writing a good horror movie, especially one based on such a revered classic. I suspect he took the job thinking that he could add depth and sophistication to such a tired old trollop as a horror flick, and so he tried to add characterization and subtle shading and...
I'm going to have to cut myself off there. The pretention is choking me.
The fact is, LaBute used this movie (as he seems to use most of his movies) as a platform to display how horrible Non-Penised-Americans are. They'll set up communes and use men for breeding stock! They'll worship weird and unusual pagan goddesses! They'll make men subservient and use them as workhorses! Them womenfolk are just up to no good!
Leelee Sobieski's character is shoehorned into this movie for some reason to help prove the point that men just can't trust them old girls. Otherwise, she's useless--she doesn't do anything for the plot, and all she's really good for is to remind people of a young Helen Hunt, and how useful is that?
Everything that was good and cool and creepy about the original film is completely cut out of this version. It has a "men good/women evil" mentality that annoys on a major scale. Cage stumbles around looking pathetically stupid. The women of the town lumber about and sneer at the men. LaBute pulls out every old chestnut cliche of the horror movie (including the "dream within a dream" ploy...yawn) and forgets that this is supposed to be a movie about the pagan ways triumphing over the Christian way.
And the ending...holy joe...the ending...
If you've seen the original "Wicker Man," you'll probably remember how chilling the ending was, how it went on and on even under the credits. Even if you didn't like the original, you probably have to admit that the ending was memorable.
This version has a similar scene towards the end...but it's not the actual end! Instead, we cut to a modern bar somewhere off the island (obviously, because the men are drinking and laughing and the women are not sneering at them). A couple of Summersisle women are gussied up in slut gear and picking up a couple of new breeding stock and...here we go again with those wacky chicks!
Ugh. Maybe next time LaBute will spare everyone the trouble and just make ninety minutes of a guy standing on a street corner calling every woman who walks past him a bitch.
Avoid this movie. Watch the original instead. At least Christopher Lee dresses in drag and sings in it.
posted by Beck | 1:53 PM
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