It’s Wicker, It’s Wicker, It’s Wicker, Fool…

Introduction

How to talk about The Wicker Man without lapsing into lazy cliches like “cult classic” etc. etc.? Well, I don’t think I can, so I’ll just say sorry about that and get on with it…

StudioCanal have been conducting an extensive worldwide search for film materials for The Wicker Man for the past year, including a public appeal to fans for clues as to the whereabouts of the missing original cut. Eventually a 35mm release print was found at Harvard Film Archives which director Robin Hardy has confirmed is the cut he had put together with distributors Abraxas in 1979 for the US release. This has been scanned at 4k and used to create the first ever full digital restoration of the film, with the director's guidance.

Hardy now accepts that film materials for the fabled "Long Version"/“Director’s Cut” will probably now never be found. “Sadly, it seems as though this has been lost forever. However, I am delighted that the 1979 Abraxas print has been found as I also put together this cut myself, and it crucially restores the story order to that which I had originally intended. This version of The Wicker Man will (optimistically!) be known as The Final Cut. The film as I saw it in the editing suite the other day fulfills my vision of what it was I intended to convey to the audience.“

The story goes like this...

When a young girl mysteriously disappears on a remote Scottish island, devout Christian and Police Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) travels there to investigate. He finds a close-knit and secretive pastoral community living on an island paradise, ruled over by the mysterious Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), whose beliefs are at odds with Howie's puritanism. The islanders mock Howie's attempts to question them about the girl's disappearance, and put the very foundations of his faith to the test. He begins to fear that the fate of the girl could be linked to the islanders' failing crops and their belief that only a sacrifice of the highest order will change their luck. As May Day festivities intensify and the islanders' behaviour becomes more frenzied, Howie's quest to save the girl becomes a race against time...

Video + Audio

Wow. The Wicker Man has never looked and sounded so good. When watching the "final cut" version you have to make allowances for the "newly found" footage - the appearance of it is a little jarring at times against the rest of the film, but it is good to see it back in the film to bring it closer to the director's vision

It looks great, it sounds great. This is probably the best it will ever be and it is worth replacing any other version with this new Blu-ray on sound and vision alone.

Extra Features

Lots of great stuff here too.

The Audio Commentary appears on the Director's Cut, and was previously used on the DVD release. There's also a short film about the making of the Audio Commentary.

Next up, a new interview with Robin Hardy in which he talks about the film and the new "final cut" version.

The Music of the Wicker Man is another new featurette which discusses the film's very unique soundtrack.

Worshipping The Wicker Man is also a new featurette featuring various "new horror" directors discussing the effects that watching it had on them.

There's also a couple of minutes of "Restoration comparison" which is the classic "before and after" side-by-side footage, which shows what a mess the film was in before it got cleaned up.

Burnt Offering: The Cult of The Wicker Man is a Mark Kermode documentary which goes into lots of detail about all the aspects of the film, and features all of the major players. Well worth watching.

An archive interview with Christopher Lee & Robin Hardy from 1979 is next up and is an interesting glimpse into the past...

Conclusion

The best ever release of this cult classic (sorry again). An excellent film, brilliantly presented. We can argue until the cows come home about which cut is the best if you like, but for me this “final cut” really works. Just as we’ll never find all of those lost Doctor Who episodes, it is unlikely that the real “director’s cut” will ever surface (although it’s not buried in any motorway bridges).

So for now, rejoice in this beautiful restoration of a flawed but still very watchable film.

Get rid of any other versions, this new Blu-ray is the one for you…