Alternative To What: "The Wicker Man" (1973)

Scene from The Wicker Man

Welcome to Alternative to What: a weekly column that tries to find a great alternative to driving to the multiplexes. Based on releases of that week, the selections will either be thematically related or feature recurring cast and crew. The goal is to help you better understand the diversity of cinema and hopefully find you some favorites while saving a few bucks. At worse, this column will save you money. Expect each installment to come out on Fridays, unless specified. 

THIS WEEK:

The Wicker Man (1973)

- Alternative To -

The Witch (2016)

This weekend marks the release of A24's first wide release The Witch. With some of the scariest trailers out there, it's interesting to see a horror film racking up a lot of praise in the vein of The Babadook or It Follows. While it has yet to be seen if it can obtain the cult status of the aforementioned titles, it definitely is looking to popularize wiccan culture in ways that haven't been seen in years. Of course, it could literally be a cult movie in a different way, especially if there's a group of witches who are plotting their revenge against this quaint little city. Still, it's great to know that there's an acclaimed horror movie out there around this time of year.
With this theme in mind, it makes sense then to focus on a different supernatural cult with The Wicker Man. While many would mistake this recommendation for the inferior Nicolas Cage remake, the original provides a healthy dose of mystery and scares. The story regarding an investigator's journey to uncover the dark secrets of an island turns slowly into something far more unnerving and compelling, in large part thanks to a compelling performance by Christopher Lee. It's a film whose twist ending is so haunting that it elevates everything that came before and quickly makes it into something greater.
The Wicker Man is not necessarily a witch movie in the traditional sense. In fact, there's not a lot of supernatural on display. Instead, it's a film about the eeriness of cult behavior. Tonally, it's one of the richest films of which to simply exist in. Everyone isn't quite right, yet it never drifts into parody or becomes comedy. Instead, it only makes things more uncomfortable as the mystery of a murdered girl becomes more and more confusing. It's a film that is all about keeping the viewer's trust, and it does it so well that its eventual twist manages to be shocking without being deceitful.

In fairness, the reason that The Wicker Man kind of works is because it manages to make everything feel natural, even if nobody is normal from the audience's perspective. There's a dark humor that exists within the film that was unfortunately hammed up in the remake (which is a "so bad it's good" contender). However, it all works together in creating a surreal vision that escapes the typical horror genre tropes and makes it into something far more immersive and creepy. There's a reason that it has resonated with audiences for so many years. It's just a really good beyond its general constructs.

It is difficult to say how similar The Witch will be to The Wicker Man, but there's no denying that they're both likely to be creepy films about cults. This recommendation may seem a little abstract, but both films may end up being total embodiment of strange and mysterious worlds that are unlike anything else we've ever seen. Still, for The Witch to continue an annual tradition of quality horror, one can only hope that we're looking at a golden age for a genre that has largely been overlooked despite producing quality work for decades and decades, even before The Wicker Man. Whatever the cause, it may do  you well to have a creepy evening, and few films will do that as effectively as The Wicker Man.