By Adrian Smith
A sequel to The Wicker Man was first proposed in the mid-1980s by Anthony
Schaffer, writer of the original. Titled “The Loathsome Lambton Wormâ€, it began
as soon as the first film ended, as Sergeant Howie is rescued from his fiery
fate by police from the mainland. He seeks justice and revenge and goes back to
Summerisle, ostensibly to arrest those responsible for his near martyrdom, but
instead becomes embroiled in a series of challenges, pitting the old gods
against his own Christian faith. The film was to end with Howie fighting a fire-breathing
dragon and then plunging willingly to his death from a cliff whilst tied to two
large eagles. It would have been terrible.
However that film, with its witches on
broomsticks and reliance on magical special effects, would have probably been far
better than this extremely belated follow-up. Thirty-nine years is a long time
to wait for a sequel, in which time Anthony Schaffer has died and Christopher
Lee has aged beyond the point of being able to take a major starring role in a
movie. Robin Hardy, director of The
Wicker Man, proposed his own sequel several years ago, originally titled
“The Riding of the Laddieâ€. Unable to find funding he wrote it into a novel,
retitled “Cowboys for Christâ€. In 2008 a press release announced the imminent
filming of this official The Wicker Man
sequel, starring Christopher Lee and Joan Collins as leaders of a sinister
cult. Funding collapsed a mere two weeks before shooting began. Two years and
one major casting change later (due to Sir Christopher’s ill health and advanced
years), The Wicker Tree finally went
into production. It has taken a further two years for the film to find
distribution, which is always a worrying sign. Although Sir Christopher is
somewhat frail, he does play an unidentified old man who pops in for one flashback
scene to intone something about old religions. His reason for being there makes
no narrative sense, and is clearly just meant as a nod to fans of the first
film.
The plot follows the “Cowboys for Christâ€
novel fairly closely. A former US country pop star has seen the light and
become converted to evangelical Christianity. Along with her reformed gambler
boyfriend, she decides that the most effective way to spread the good news is
to spend two years knocking on the doors
of disinterested Scots. I would have thought it more likely that she would have
recorded gospel albums and performed to sell out gigs. In some convoluted way
that is never fully explained, the two of them end up as the guests of Sir
Lachlan Morrison (a possible relation to Rowan Morrison, the missing girl from
the original film?), in the distant Scottish village of Tressock. He runs his
own nuclear power station, and apparently an accident ten years previously has
rendered all the men in the village infertile. For this reason Morrison has
encouraged the villagers to get into paganism in a big way, with the main focus
being May Day, where they have a Laddie and a May Queen. He uses his vast
wealth to search the world for suitably virginal candidates, and it doesn’t
take a genius to guess the intended fate for his Texan guests. Why he doesn’t
just spend some money on fertility treatment I don’t know. It would be much
simpler.