I watch quite a few movies, and most of them come and go without leaving much of a mark.  Indeed, I pretty much only watch movies now, with the exception of a few shows (like Bob’s Burgers).  Some of them probably deserve more attention than I give them, as I’m usually multitasking—poorly—while watching them.

But for every eight duds there is one film that will stick out.  These are usually the ones I write about.  Typically they stick out in a positive way, though Ponty has encouraged me to write some reviews of movies I don’t like (you can read one such review here).  This week’s selection really made an impact on me, and it’s one I heartily recommend.

The flick is 1973’s The Wicker Man, based on a 1967 novel by David Pinner called Ritual.  The film is, perhaps, one of the most Christian (and pro-Christian) movies I have seen in a long time.  I don’t think its creators intended it as a Christian film, but I’ll make the case for it in this review.

That said, if I’m correct, The Wicker Man probably has the most nudity of any Christian film ever made.

The Wicker Man falls into the category of “folk horror,” a style that has enjoyed a renaissance of late, especially with A24 films like Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019).  (I would not recommend any Christian watch these films; they are very good, but deeply unsettling.  Hereditary in particular is hard-to-watch, in the sense that it will touch your soul in a dark way; it’s not worth the risk.  Midsommar is not as bad, and equates most directly to The Wicker Man, but proceed with extreme spiritual caution).  Folk horror is horror based on real or fictionalized folk practices, often pagan in nature, and usually involves people from outside stumbling into a traditionally pagan folk group, and slowly coming to the realization that their lives are in peril.

What makes folk horror so scary and creepy is that there is a plausibility to it:  people did used to engage in the kinds of practices depicted in these films—ritual sacrifice, fertility rites, sex magic, and etc.  Christianity and modernity, in their own ways, eradicated, suppressed, or refocused those rituals (for example, we no longer need to sacrifice pure lambs or untainted virgins because Christ provided THE Sacrifice for our sins—forever!).  But folk horror implies that these practices—or, at the very least, their primal brutality—still endure in the darker corners of society, lurking just below the surface of our civilized façade.  The genre just takes those dark, suppressed urges and places them in the open—often, as in the case of Midsommar, in broad daylight—which further enhances their terror.

So it is with The Wicker Man, perhaps the quintessential example of folk horror.  The story involves a police detective, Sergeant Neil Howie, flying a seaplane to Summerisle, a remote Scottish island in the Outer Hebrides.  Sergeant Howie has received word that a young girl on the island has gone missing.

Upon his arrival, things are immediately amiss.  The townspeople are wary of outsiders, and answer his questions vaguely, if at all.  He also struck by their apparent attachment to debauchery:  the pub (where he takes a room while he conducts his investigation) is rowdy, as pubs are, but the patrons sing ancient folk songs about loose women (well, that’s not too far from reality).  The innkeeper’s daughter performs a lurid, tribal dance while naked in the room adjacent to Howie; while he cannot see her, her dancing—which includes pounding on the wall adjoining the rooms—sends him into a fevered state of arousal, which only through prayer he resists.

It is quickly established that Howie is a very devout Christian in the Church of England.  He is also a virgin, and is engaged to a woman on the mainland.  He is virtuous to a fault, and dogged in his efforts to find a missing girl—a girl whose own mother denies her existence.  Throughout his stay, he witnesses a number of pagan or pre-Christian practices:  young boys dancing around the Maypole; a classroom of girls learning about sex and fertility at far too young an age; people hanging around the graves of their loved ones naked, sometimes even engaged in intercourse on the graves.

All of these practices disgust Howie, who demands to know why people behave this way, and if they have ever heard of Christ.  The island’s inhabitants, including the flamboyant Lord Summerisle himself (wonderfully and creepily played by horror legend Christopher Lee), explain that they abandoned Christ and returned to the old gods because the pagan ways improved the yields of their fields and orchards, which grow produce of an almost tropical stripe in a section of Scotland that is normally cold and damp.

As Howie dives deeper into the search, he finds that the missing girl, indeed, exists, and was even enrolled in school on the island.  He also discovers the rituals of May Day, in which the lord dresses as a woman; another resident dresses as a hobbyhorse; and a third dresses as a fool.  A group of six men carrying six swords use the swords to form a six-point star, which is used to behead (symbolically, it turns out) a member of the procession.

Howie manages to disguise himself as The Fool and engages in the parade.  He then sees the girl he is meant to find, seemingly on the cusp of sacrifice.  He grabs her and the two escape through a cave… only to find Lord Summerisle and the rest of the island’s residents waiting for them.

Here’s the twist:  the girl’s disappearance was staged, and the whole ordeal was an elaborate ruse to lure the virginal Howie to the island.  The previous year’s crop failed for the first time in many years, and the islanders believe their sun god and earth goddess must have a sacrifice to ensure a productive harvest.

Howie is intended to be that sacrifice.  He loudly shouts at Lord Summerisle that, should the harvest fail again, the islanders will come for Summerisle next.  Summerisle—now fully pagan—rejoinds that the sacrifice will work, and is the only way to save the island.

Howie is placed  in a large wicker statue in the shape of a human.  Inside the titular wicker man are animals to be sacrificed, as well as kindling.  The pagans set fire to the statue as Howie recites Scripture, calling out to Christ for salvation, begging for a swift death so he can live in Eternity with Christ.

It’s a powerful, unsettling scene, but Howie’s faith to the end—he even tries to convert the islanders to Christianity in his final appeal—is a powerful testament to his belief.  He dies a martyr, in a method that, while sensationalized for film, was the fate of thousands of Christians who boldly preached the Gospel in hostile lands (and continue to do so).  Burning of martyrs was just one of many ways in which Christian proselytizers died bravely for Christ.

Thus it is that The Wicker Man is a Christian film.  Howie resists overwhelming temptation and stays true to his course, fulfilling his mission to find the missing girl.  Even though he is duped, he boldly proclaims Christ to the terrifying end.

How many of us would do the same?  We live in an age in which Christians are not eager to stand up for their faith, much less to die for it.  Would I go into the wicker man proclaiming Christ?  It’s a hard thing to contemplate; even in a fictionalized way, it’s hard to watch.