The Wicker Man (1973 film)

The Wicker Man is a British folk horror film released in 1973 and directed by Robin Hardy from a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer, who drew on David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual. Edward Woodward plays Sergeant Neil Howie, a devout Christian police officer who travels to the remote, fictional Scottish island of Summerisle to look for a missing girl and finds that its inhabitants have abandoned Christianity for a form of Celtic paganism. Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and Christopher Lee also star, and Paul Giovanni composed the score. The film was made while its studio, British Lion Films, was in financial trouble, and it was shot almost entirely in small Scottish towns. Reviews on release were mixed, but it won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film, and later critics rated it highly: Cinefantastique called it the Citizen Kane of horror movies and Total Film ranked it sixth among British films. Its wicker effigy entered popular culture, and it was followed by a poorly received 2006 American remake and by Hardy's 2011 spiritual sequel The Wicker Tree.