The Wicker Man (2006)
Directed by Neil LaBute
A sheriff investigating the disappearance of a young girl from a small island discovers there's a larger mystery to solve among the island's secretive, neo-pagan community.
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What critics compared The Wicker Man to
Midsommar shares a few similarities with the Nicolas Cage version of The Wicker Man.
Some years ago, The Wicker Man was remade with Nicolas Cage screaming, “Not the bees!,” but Midsommar is the true heir to Robin Hardy’s 1974 horror classic, a pastoral idyll with ancient pagan blood sacrifices lurking underneath to clutch at our civilized hearts.
In any event, “Midsommar” isn’t quite different enough: its premise, deriving from the idea that pagan elements in traditional fertility rites can have dire consequences, hearkens back to “The Wicker Man,” both Robin Hardy’s 1973 cult classic and Neil LaBute’s misguided 2006 remake.
Like its predecessor, there’s next to nothing new to see here, unless you’re unfamiliar with Robin Hardy’s 1973 classic The Wicker Man (or its inferior 2006 Hollywood remake starring Nicolas Cage, famous for begetting a plethora of memes).
On the other hand, he seems aware of previous movies in which outsiders are threatening by an insular community’s rituals, such as “Two Thousand Maniacs!” (1964) and “The Wicker Man” (1973, remade 2006).
At its height, I was watching his notoriously unhinged 2006 remake of The Wicker Man on a near-monthly basis, with my in-jokes progressing beyond merely quoting it (“Not the bees!”; “How’d it get burned!”) to referencing obscure bits of set dressing in it.
The story works on many levels, as the kind of buddy story Javi wants to write, as the kind of action story they conclude they can get financing for, and above all as a knowing comedy with many references to Cage’s wide-ranging oeuvre, from “Cross 2” to “Guarding Tess,” “The Wicker Man” to “Con Air,” “Face-Off,” and “The Rock,” and to over-arching issues of the way movies tell stories and the way movies get made.
But Cage, lampooning himself in a museum dedicated to his memorabilia, making fun of his performance in "The Wicker Man" ("not the bees!") and embracing his own kooky legend, is all joy.
But The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent sees Cage playing to the cheap seats, throwing a bone at every Cage superfan who’s bought an embroidered pillow with his face on it or quoted lines from The Wicker Man back at him on the street.
You bitches!”) in last year’s The Wicker Man.
Would he rather face the razzing until Doomsday he's going to endure for dressing up in a bear costume to play a psycho cop in last year's The Wicker Man remake (get that Razzie Award ready!) or would he rather be Satan's errand boy until hell freezes over?