It’s pure ritualistic spectacle with Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) presiding over some of the greatest cinematography in horror movie history.

| Jan 22, 2025

It’s both deeply unsettling and consistently visually vibrant—a foundational work of folk horror that puts all other films about faith to absolute shame.

| Jul 25, 2024

I think what makes The Wicker Man so disturbing is the way that the filmmakers depict the dangers of cult mentality and the horror of belonging to an isolated community.

| May 16, 2024

The Wicker Man is an epithet to the desecration of purity.

| Mar 18, 2024

...locating a beating pagan heart behind Scottish superstitions, The Wicker Man shows civilised man at a loss, out of his depth and helpless in the face of a fervent radicalism he thought had long-since vanished…

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 20, 2024

Despite a lack of horror in the first two acts of the film, The Wicker Man succeeds largely due to an adept performance of a well-written character. This makes the climax feel all the more powerful and worth the wait.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2023

It employs allegory and atmosphere to amplify its thin veneer of the supernatural -- it registers as both a fantasy flick and a horror movie in our minds more than it does on the screen.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 28, 2023

Edward Woodward’s uptight Sergeant Neil Howie is the perfect outsider to descend on spooky Summerisle.

| Aug 9, 2023

An offbeat masterpiece that reveals the dark heart of Britain through the perennial tension between social progress and the burden of the past.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 21, 2023

Director Robin Hardy creates an uneasy atmosphere, filling in the sunny island paradise with sensuous imagery and drawing attention to the phallic symbols, while presenting the Mother Earth worship with sincerity.

| May 6, 2023

An atmospheric and well-regarded British thriller setting one idolatrous dogma against another.

| Original Score: A+ | Nov 29, 2022

This movie won't win any prizes for cinematography, and it never overcomes the problems of the miscast Christopher Lee or the priggish principal character, but it's one of the more thoughtful films you're likely to see this year.

| Nov 5, 2021

Its ending is impactful and memorable, but the lead-up to its conclusion leaves a bit to be desired.

| Sep 25, 2021

Classic...arguably the bleakest ending in cinema history anywhere...

| Apr 15, 2021

There's suspense and wonderment, even when the pacing is a bit slow and the delay of answers a touch frustrating.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 31, 2020

Besides being a great horror film, The Wicker Man is a marvelous time capsule of the 1970s.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Mar 22, 2020

An exploitative mystery horror film in which Edward Woodward overacts his heart out.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 8, 2019

Its mysteries rely not on easy gimmicks, but on a process of intellectual unfolding carried out jointly by Howie and the viewer. All of this takes place against a context or texture of haunting eeriness.

| Feb 22, 2019

A genius conflation of the on-screen pagan versus Christian (and provincial versus federal) dichotomies into an equally combustible cinematographic battle of the sensibilities

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 10, 2018

Christopher Lee, who plays the lord of the island, thinks it's one of the finest films he's ever made -- and he's right.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 7, 2013