The Haunt Of Fear: ILX Top 100 HORROR Movies Poll Results Thread

"I'll go ahead and just CIRCUM-TORMENT the anti-pagan sentiment OTT today right now!"

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05. THE WICKER MAN
Robin Hardy, UK, 1973
(1057 points, 33 votes, 2 first-place votes)

I HATE WICKER MAN
― everyone on this thread today, Thursday, May 24, 2012

there was a story in the Victor comic when i was a wee boy that completely spoilered my first viewing of Wicker Man

oh my god if i had given TCM a first place vote it would have made the top 5

anyway, masks are fucking scary is the basic premise of TCM and TWM

Ah, phew, was really getting worried. Now I can just say: TOO LOW.

Whoomp there it is.

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/124/350632146_e3ee38fc79_b.jpg

Bought this just as videos were hitting the market:

http://cdn3.iofferphoto.com/img/item/117/096/565/o_cBhXauvv57xfuye.jpg

Lays out the film frame by frame, a real novelty at the time.

La Lechera placed on suicide watch

I love every single last thing about this movie! You can't make me change my mind. #1 #1 #1.

jjjusten placed on MURDER WATCH

I pored over that Anobile book in high school.

at least The Wicker Man is better than The Shining.

i dont think i can really accurately appraise TWM because that room to room sexytime suddenly its a musical thing just absolutely ruins the movie for me, and i have never been able to get past that.

Wicker Man rules, fuck y'all

my favourite bit in wicker man is the ritual with the swords. sheer panic!

Man I don't think I voted for a single one of these top 10s so far except maybe Suspiria. TCM, TWM, and NOTLD I found unexceptional and Psycho I haven't seen since I was like 11 and Carrie I haven't seen.

See Carrie! See it right now!

in my mind, all of the UK outside of London is basically the wicker man + the prisoner

are people just in love with the basic premise + twist ending of TWM? from a technical standpoint it seems completely unremarkable, which is not the case with the rest of the top 10.

Now that both are revealed, yes, I was secretly rooting for THE WICKER MAN to make the top five and for PSYCHO to land just outside. For a good portion of early polling, PSYCHO was pretty far out front in the lead for overall #1 (this was, of course, back when POSSESSION was also in the top 10). Morbs' ballot at the end pushed PSYCHO back up to #5 and TWM down to #6.

My allegiance here was mostly because I thought TWM would make for a really cool movie to have this high up, but comments ITT have disillusioned me a tad.

Nonetheless, I have always thought TWM to be a far more interesting take on the intersection of horror and religion than THE EXORCIST.

Wicker Man rules, fuck y'all

― Simon H., Thursday, May 24, 2012 8:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^

like Psycho, Carrie, Suspiria, TCM - all of these have amazing formal things going on with in the frame. TWM is pretty by-the-numbers.

TCM, TWM, and NOTLD I found unexceptional

I am not going to buy your shirt anymore, Stevie D.

Failure to appreciate the confluence of music, death, life, sex, religion, history, agricultural societies, and nature is a pretty big failure -- what else is there?! Also, I think the nudity in this movie is very natural and well done.

Story time: When I was but a wee lad I saw part of a film on late-night "Friday Nite Horror"-type TV that scarred me. It had a weird authenticity and strange gleefulness as villagers sang and marched and then burned this man alive. For many years I wondered if it was some sort of terrible dream I'd had. Many years later, still in pre-internet, small-town Iowa, I see the movie Shallow Grave and see that very same horrifying scene playing on a TV in the background of one of the scenes. Breathless, I check the closing credits for the films title. Many years after that, I find myself in Scotland looking at the remains of the Wicker Man's feet.

THE END.

I like TWM and all, but it is not a better movie than Psycho or TCM.

I disliked the wicker man. Haven't seen the remake but I'd give it a chance.

I have a picture of Thnig standing behind the bar that was used for the inside shots of the Green Man but I won't embarrass him.

That was me in the above shot btw.

from a technical standpoint it seems completely unremarkable, which is not the case with the rest of the top 10.

― Roger Barfing (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, May 24, 2012 2:30 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'd think you'd have figured out by now that pretty much no one cares about the technical standpoint as much as you do

Haven't seen the remake but I'd give it a chance.

you may want to adjust yr expectations before viewing

personally i could give a fuck about the technical standpoint

Morbs' ballot at the end pushed PSYCHO back up to #5 and TWM down to #6.

But, ah, that is not how they are listed.

i dont think i can really accurately appraise TWM because that room to room sexytime suddenly its a musical thing just absolutely ruins the movie for me, and i have never been able to get past that.

huh, that's one of my favorite parts. i love stylization, unreality and sudden textural shifts though. think you're more attracted to consistent realism?

Nonetheless, I have always thought TWM to be a far more interesting take on the intersection of horror and religion than THE EXORCIST.

You know what's even better? PRINCE OF DARKNESS, which nobody but me voted for. ;_;

My point is that Mr. Hal Jam's ballot (which was slipped in even after yours) changed them back, Morbs. So yay!

STILL TALKING ABOUT WICKER MAN
In many (most) horror movies, the person who has sex dies. In TWM, sex could have saved our protagonist's life. That's a positive message about sex that you just don't see in a lot of movies, much less horror movies.

Walking around the locations in Scotland, man, it feels like this thing really happened. They sang and danced and killed people. There's just nothing else like the Wicker Man.

In TWM, sex could have saved our protagonist's life.

ANOTHER reason this movie freaks my shit out.

are people just in love with the basic premise + twist ending of TWM? from a technical standpoint it seems completely unremarkable, which is not the case with the rest of the top 10.

this is true to some extent, but i think misses the point. did you see those stills that pillbox put together? whether by accident or by careful cinematic craft, it's wall-to-wall with striking, evocative images. the photography, editing and narrative construction are often rather drab, but in a way that suits the fuddy-duddy protagonist and makes the slow accumulation of real weirdness all the more unsettling.

regret voting.

The Wicker Man is extra special to heathens, so big zurprize.

blows my mind that there are people who actually get freaked out by TWM

wait, so Rosemary's Baby isn't even going to place?

There's already two Polanski movies in the results, right?

i approve of everything that's in the Top 10 so far (even though i didn't vote for suspiria, which i actually kind of regret).

Christopher Lee is AWESOME in Wicker Man. And his singing voice is dope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcB39PeoZyY&feature=BFa&list=PL0ABE85C6B0F09C0D

regret voting.

Can it. Your ballot was about .00004 points of deviation from the norm on this one.

I swear I didn't paste in Man of "La Macha".

Try again?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcB39PeoZyY

Let's not forget the GENIUS OF INGRID PITT (this is from a different movie but I had to find a good one without nudity)

http://cache2.artprintimages.com/lrg/30/3005/Y6GBF00Z.jpg

How can all you people keep up in this thread? At least with terrible kneejerk tasks at work to do.

TWM at the #2 here, so fuck the haters.

In 2006 me and friends decided to do a vacation in Kerry, of all places, the rather rural and remote south-west region of Ireland (yeah, not Scotland, but nm). Just four days of cruising around the forlorn countryside while listening to Badalamenti, finding sheep bones at every possibility, rummaging through derelict houses, nearly getting in fistfights with strange Irishmen not really keen on meeting tourists, getting invited to 65th birthdays of local frolicking innkeepers with adolescent nieces in white dresses and avoiding the creepiest most fucked up slasher-friendly camping ground this side of the Atlantic (called The Peacock, eerie stuff, managed by Dutchmen, be warned).

About half a year later we watched The Wicker Man entirely by chance for the first time (it's got basically 0 reputation here in Germany, doesn't get shown on TV etc.) and suddenly everything made sense.