The Wicker Man (1973) ****1/2

I recently watched the excellent "Midsommar," which has had a lot of comparisons to the 1973 folk-horror film “The Wicker Man.” Having now watched “The Wicker Man,” I realize just how much of a debt “Midsommar” owes to this horror classic.

Edward Woodward plays Sergeant Howie, a police detective dispatched to the isolated, Scottish island, Summerisle, to investigate a tip about a missing girl. He finds the villagers, even the girl's mother, extremely unhelpful. They first deny the girl's existence, then, when he catches them in the lie, they are cryptic about what may have happened to her. Meanwhile, Howie witnesses villagers performing pagan rituals, including copulating publicly on the village square. The owner of the island, Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), explains to Howie that they have returned to worshiping the old, celtic gods, to ensure good harvests. When Howie deduces that last Fall's harvest was poor, he suspects that the missing girl may be intended as a human sacrifice, and it's a race against the clock to find her.

The genius of “The Wicker Man” is the way the horror builds, ever so slowly. At first, Howie seems invincible, with his uniform and his authority. He is smart and relentless, and the villagers' simplistic efforts to thwart him seem destined to fail. Even the gorgeous Britt Ekland's naked siren song doesn't draw Howie off course.  The pagan rites scandalize the devoutly Christian Howie, but they are all out in the open, and they seem harmless enough. Who cares, after all, if a bunch of pretty girls dance naked, or people celebrate the fertility of the land by having sex? It's just a reminder of how many modern, Christian traditions, like Easter Eggs, have pagan roots. Gradually, though, we and Howie come to realize how alone he is on this island, where everyone seems to be set against him. What formerly seemed so strong, Howie and everything he represents, including lawful authority and modern civilization itself, starts to look fragile. Howie, in a sense IS the wicker man.

The 1980 novel “Waiting for the Barbarians,” by J.M. Coetzee tells the story of a frontier town. There, on the cowering edge of civilization, government agents torture captured indigenous people in order to prepare for a barbarian attack that never comes. The barbarians, it turns out, are already there, and they are them. “The Wicker Man” also explores what may be lurking under the thin veneer of civilized life. What would it take for our fellow man to turn on us, to sacrifice us? One bad harvest? A viral pandemic? An election?

4.5 stars out of 5