2011 Directed by Robin Hardy
Gospel singer Beth and her cowboy boyfriend Steve leave Texas to preach door-to-door in Scotland. When, after initial abuse, they are welcomed with joy and elation to Tressock, the border fiefdom of Sir Lachlan Morrison, they're about to learn the real meaning of sacrifice.
El Arbol de Mimbre, Cowboys for Christ, The Riding of the Laddie, May Day, A Árvore de Palha, Плетеное дерево, עץ הקש, Плетеното дърво, 异教徒2, O Homem Palha, 위커 트리, Плетене дерево
Canada
Fantasia International Film Festival
Ireland
USAR
UK15
Canada
Ireland
UK
USA
A cross between The Wicker Man, an amateur porno made by dogging enthusiasts and an episode of Bergerac.
To be fair, this is so unbelievably bad, there's enjoyment to be had.
The Wicker Tree. 2006. Directed by Robin Hardy.
Robin Hardy should have retired and/or consulted with other horror movie screenplay writers before releasing this farce. The Wicker Tree (2006) looks and plays like a Hallmark movie except for the nude scenes. Hardy’s classic folk horror, The Wicker Man, is a masterpiece and inspired and created a new movement and strengthened the folk horror genre.
The Wicker Tree is an embarrassment in folk horror movie making. The script needed more detail work put into scenes. There are soap operas with more solid scripts for actors to tread upon. The folk horror scenes were lacking the graphic intensity, believability, and originality of the classic. In addition, Christopher Lee was supposed to reprise…
It’s far from the worst looking or worst acted film ever, but The Wicker Tree fails in almost every other aspect when it comes to reimagining the 70s cult classic Wicker Man, or even being a spiritual sequel. It’s a nothing movie - where nothing happens, and nothing matters. It doesn’t feel like it’s saying anything, or doing anything. The secluded island and crippling claustrophobia of the original is gone, the mystery is gone, the horrifying realisation at the end is gone, the internal struggle between 2 belief systems and the commentary around religious morality is gone, the uncomfortable atmosphere and increasingly passive-aggressive locals are gone, the expertly-paced buildup is gone - the whole film just kind chats about nothing…
The Wicker Man is one of the best horror movies ever made, and one of the most important films to me personally, being a very formative experience for me when I first saw it as a teenager. However The Wicker Tree, despite having the same director, is a poor copy of the original, being a sequel that fails to live up to the first film in any way whatsoever. What it reveals is that Anthony Shaffer's script for the original was masterful, and director Robin Hardy does a poor job when writing for himself. The Wicker Tree is a dud.
The Wicker Tree is badly acted, visually uninspired, and totally predictable. Though it's quite loyal to The Wicker…
One of those completely baffling films that fails in so many way with so many bizarre choices made throughout that it’s hard to comprehend someone was making these choices consciously.
As a rehash of The Wicker Man, it’s very boring and even when it’s doing very strange things it never succeeds to be engaging or even remotely funny.
There was one slightly tense and suspenseful sequence later in the film that gave me a few moments of enjoyment but this is overwhelmingly bad on almost every level.
This is bad on every level. It's barely watchable. The only feeling I got from this was embarrassment, for all the cast and crew involved. I'm sure they're consummate professionals... but this is just a shameful mess.
It takes carefully constructed themes and ideas from the original film , regarding religion, culture and society, and presents them in the most juvenile, boring and thoughtless manner possible. It is incredible that Robin Hardy was able to imbue such subtlety within performance, cinematography and setting in his original film... and then create something that is so void nuance, detail or even character.
It's difficult to point out a root cause for the films troubles. Everything is very poor. Performances are mismatched -…
I never saw Midsommar, I know i probably should just watch Midsommar so I don't have to ask this but, is this Midsommar???? Midsommar with a born again country singer wandering around a small Scottish village hoping to spread the word about Jesus along with her cowboy fiancee, and with villagers whom you know have their own plans in mind for this stranger. They adorn her in a fruit dress at one point, I know there's a funky dress made out of I wanna say leaves in Midsommar--I'm gonna say this is Midsommar. Ok guys now I've seen the lower budgeted nowhere near as good dress rehearsal dinner for Midsommar. I don't need to go see the actual thing now…
Robin Hardy war Romanautor.
Er hat den originalen The Wicker Man aber nicht geschrieben.
Dafür schrieb er dieses spirituelle Sequel.
Deswegen weiß ich:
Ich werde keine Bücher von ihm lesen.
This one star is for Graham McTavish and Christopher Lee alone.
It's puzzling how Robin Hardy managed to create a masterpiece in 1973 just to basically shit all over it in 2011. This felt like a Hallmark movie and it's not even fun bad, it's just plain bad. And the worst thing is that Midsommar ripped it off, it's the same movie, basically, except one got that A24 distribution. To me, they both suck.
I can't believe how generous I was towards this long-awaited but unasked-for sequel when I first saw it. I seemed to think that, even if it didn't work as a horror movie, it was a pleasant enough Sunday afternoon-type comedy (given my twisted tastes, anyway).
What the fuck was I thinking? The Wicker Tree is an absolute car crash of a film. Nothing works on any level, everyone's awful in it (yes, even Christopher Lee) and it's boring as hell.
I'm struggling to justify giving it even one star (I scored it two and a half stars last time for some unfathomable reason!), but I guess the first act is fairly entertaining, setting up what could be a half-decent story before it all starts to fall apart.
And then, for the next hour or so, it never stops falling apart.
So after finishing off a re-watch of the wonderful '73 Wicker Man, I figured what better time to finally check out the "spiritual successor" The Wicker Tree. Well what a stupid decision that was...
It feels like Robin Hardy sat down, re-watched Wicker Man, and figured, why not make a hipper, more modern version, but in the process he made everything worse. A whole lot worse. It is not an exaggeration to say that every little thing is terrible about this movie. The iconic soundtrack... gone. The interesting characters... gone. The unsettling creepiness... gone. Everything about this movie is just a total mess.
Watching this back-to-back with the '06 Wicker Man last night was a real test of my sanity. That's three hours of my life that i'm never getting back. : /
