The Wicker Man

Robin Hardy's ultra-strange movie, best described as a "psychedelic pagan horror", endured all manner of indignities prior to its release. It was cut down and butchered mercilessly by studio execs at British Lion Films. All the same, this powerful and lurid slice of neo-paganism has grown and grown in reputation since its release. It's now a cult classic, and ranked as one of the most original, powerful and disturbing horror stories ever to grace the big screen.

The premise is from hell: a schoolgirl has mysteriously disappeared, amid rumours of ritual killing, but the islanders are either blithely unaware of her fate, or, after a while, happy to admit she was sacrificed to the pagan gods (turned into a hare, no less). This emerges as a policeman from the Scottish mainland - the uptight, virginal Sergeant Howie (Woodward) - investigates.

Howie's the polar opposite of the carefree, sexed-up pagans, and it's to Woodward's credit that he creates a peculiarly sympathetic character out of what could easily have been a one-note performance of presbyterian outrage. While he believes himself invulnerable, with all the power of the law behind him, Howie is, in fact, an innocent abroad, unable to discern his woeful predicament. It's this lack of insight that seals his fate.

Strangely, however, the story is played equally for laughs and whimsy. There's naked cavortings, frequent detours into song, dance and surrealism: the islanders wear badger and hare masks and peep over walls like Beatrix Potter characters. How's a stolid, unimaginative copper from the mainland to make sense of all this?

Audiences gleefully embraced these perhaps contradictory elements: helped by the casting of Christopher Lee as the charming Lord Summerisle and the lissom Britt Ekland as the come-hitherish publican's daughter Willow, who's intent on dispensing (highly desirable) sexual favours. But despite the lyric touches in the paganism, The Wicker Man is ultimately a terribly dark film. There isn't a hint of redemption or salvation for Howie. When the "joyous" practices of the old religion are finally proved to be pure, bestial savagery, he is forced to face up to a fate that is truly awful, and judged by the workaday standards of the gothic horror of the time, quite unsurpassed.