The Wicker Man transcript
Season 1 · Episode 7. Generated automatically, so expect the odd misheard word.
Hello and welcome to the worst movie podcast. That didn't work out at all.
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And I'm Aaron and this is a podcast where we watch the worst movies ever made and we try to convince ourselves it's for a higher purpose.
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Are we keeping that
today we're continuing with our theme Horrible Horror as all throughout the month of October. And today we're discussing The Wicker Man.
2006 film starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Neil Labout. I think that's how you pronounce it. Why don't you give us a synopsis of this movie?
Okay, sheriff investigating the disappearance of a young girl from an island community discovers there's a mystery to solve among the island's secretive neo-pagan community.
Yeah, we'll drop a trailer in the show notes so you can at least get a 90 second overview of kind of what this movie looks like and what it's about. This movie got a 15 % on Rotten Tomatoes, average rating of 2.0 on Letterbox. It broke even at the box office, $40 million budget, made about $40 million in the box office. So not too bad. Star power of Nicolas Cage, but...
It really got, you know, kind of memeified, I guess you would say, a lot of the bad scenes and performances. What did you know about this movie before going into it?
The only thing I knew about it was that my brother had seen it, I'm pretty sure, and he hated it. So that was my impression of it, so I never saw it.
Yeah.
in theaters, he's out in theaters.
I think he saw it in theaters when it came out, yeah.
I didn't know much about it. 2006 was a busy year for me. So it was a blur in terms of what I heard about this movie live. But yeah, I'd just seen memes and mentions of it throughout the year. So I was really interested to take a look and especially
take a look at a Nick Cage movie for this podcast, which we'll get into that a little bit more. I guess before we start talking about this movie, we should mention that it was a remake of a 1973 British film. had you heard about that one at all or know anything about that? we can talk about it a little bit at the end. I actually ended up watching that one after watching the Nick Cage one, just cause I was curious and, you know, it was, it was like 90 minutes or so. It wasn't that long. So.
No, not at
I thought I'd give it a watch. Did a lot of reading to try to understand what went wrong in this movie. So as best as I could tell Neil LaBoot, hopefully I'm saying his name right, he changed a bunch of things from the original movie. And it seems like there was a lot of hidden symbolism and criticism about the Mormon church that he added into the remake of it.
And so for instance, like all the bees, apparently bees are a major symbol within the Mormon church. And so like there were no bees in the original film. Like all that stuff was added in this one. And yeah, a number of other things that kind of interesting that he was trying to say. I'm not quite sure what he was trying to say about the Mormon church, but that's what accounted for a lot of the differences in the movie, I think.
Interesting. I didn't get any of that. I wouldn't have known that unless you told me.
I wouldn't have known it unless I read somebody talking about it was subtle. I guess an outsider maybe maybe for an insider you would pick up on that a lot more easily. But yeah, so let's talk about the remake first of all spoiler alert. There's some major spoilers in this movie and I guess spoiling this movie will also spoil the 1973 movie because
Mm-hmm.
It's kind of the same overarching plot point. You've had plenty of time to watch this movie, but if you are interested in seeing, might I recommend the original Wicker Man before this one? But yeah, spoiler alert. So we start off this movie with a scene of Nick Cage as a California Highway Patrol officer, I guess. You want to talk about kind of the opening scene?
Yeah, it's basically him just riding around on his motorcycle for a while, putting tags on abandoned cars and things like that. He looks hilarious riding his motorcycle. I don't know if you thought so, but I thought he looked really funny. He looked like he was too big for motorcycle.
Ha
What
I didn't know that I picked that The thing that I noted was his jacket seemed elaborate and I was wondering how true to real CHIPS officer like that uniform was. I was like, that's a little too like rock and roll for a cop.
It might've come from his own personal collection for all I know. So he eventually pulls over this car because there's a girl in the back seat that threw her doll out the window and he rides by and scoops it up as he rides, which is pretty awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know that I would have tried that, but ⁓ yeah. And he pulls them over to give it back. And I just wrote in my notes that it was a shitty little girl because she was so rude. ⁓ she kept throwing it out the window after he gave it back to her and all this stuff. And eventually a semi truck comes and smashes into the card. It bursts into flames. He gets like thrown away into the street and blacks out. And when he wakes up,
Yeah, seems dangerous.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Apparently the girl and the mom weren't in the car when anybody arrived. So he's not sure what happened to them and he's kind of dealing with the PTSD of the incident afterwards. What'd you think of the scene?
this is gonna jump to the end, but throughout the movie, we see flashbacks to the scene and it clearly was trying to say something more meaningful about Nicolas Cage's character and his psyche and are references that keep coming up to that original scene. Why? It didn't make any sense to me.
seemed like it was trying to say something that maybe I'm just too dense to understand, but it I didn't get it. I didn't understand why we spent so much time with us. Did you?
No, no. It had no meaning for me. So I don't know what they were trying to say with that scene. And it it subtly changed at times where he would have the flashback, but the girl was never in the car or just weird things like that where I'm not quite sure what they were trying to tell us.
Yeah.
Yeah, I put that under kind of my notes for the directing. it seemed like the movie was trying to say something bigger than it actually did. And it just got, I got lost. It was very confusing.
Yeah, I'd agree.
Should we talk a little bit about Nicolas Cage before we get too deep into it? How do you feel about Nicolas Cage?
I think he's entertaining. I wouldn't say necessarily that he's a great actor, but you can't look away in a lot of his scenes. I think he's, he's been in good movies and he's definitely carried movies just with charisma. I don't think he shows a lot of range with a lot of the roles he picks. He's kind of just Nick Cage in a lot of movies. ⁓ and I,
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know that he takes roles just for the money from what I understand. So I think that he's kind of an average actor with a lot of charisma and a little nepotism.
Yeah. I, I was kind of surprised that we didn't really get full on Nick Cage in this movie until probably the last 15 minutes. he seemed very muted throughout, but yeah, Nicolas Cage is, a weird one for me. Cause I mean, there's some movies where I feel like he's amazing leaving Las Vegas, raising Arizona, just some amazing performances. And then, yeah, maybe it's just that.
Yeah.
He's so singular and iconic that it's hard to not just see Nicolas Cage on the screen when you're watching a movie with him. yeah, it seems like he kind of, probably takes good movies and pushes them a little bit further towards that end of the spectrum. And then probably also takes bad movies and pushes them even more bad by just, you know, committing to the performance. So.
It's hard to really peg him down as a good actor or bad actor in my mind.
He's a little bit to me like George Clooney in a sense, not in their style, but that I can't see anyone other than George Clooney when he's in a movie and he he's always kind of himself to me. So, yeah, I don't know. I like Nick Cage movies. They're definitely entertaining.
Yeah.
weird because I would say half of the movies I've seen with him. He's great. They're great movies. And then the other half, it's just what's going on here.
potentially the worst movies ever made.
Yeah
so the story kind of kicks off the main story kicks off after the crash. I'll just say he gets a letter from an ex fiance, that her daughter's missing and to come to this island to help her find her daughter. What did you.
He's on like
medical leave or something after the incident. So he's got some time off when he gets this letter.
Yeah.
What do you think about this premise and the whole overarching? Would you go, would you go find, would you go help your ex fiance find her daughter?
I think so, especially if I'm a cop like and I got nothing to do apparently. I'd probably at least check it out. He tried calling and apparently they have no phones on the island that she lives on. So I'd probably at least try to swing by and see what's up.
It seemed like a very unbelievable premise to me, actually. It seemed like it'd been some years before he'd even talked to her. She, she left him under mysterious circumstances. I think I might harbor some resentment still. And it's like one thing to say, I'm, I'm in prison, come bring some bail money or something, or, you know, can you give me a ride to the airport?
It's another thing to say, come from California to this remote island off of Washington state and spend a few days or a week solving this mystery. It seemed like a big commitment to me for not much setup.
Yeah, which is kind of weird because it sounds like things didn't end well with this girl and he hadn't talked about her to really anybody. So, yeah, I guess it might be a stretch if if things ended that badly, then maybe I wouldn't. But yeah, I don't know. Did you see the letter?
Yes, it was the best handwriting I've ever seen.
It had like a wax seal on it and
calligraphy. It was incredible.
Yeah, the the wax
seal was I think beeswax like they kept having all these bees references. Yeah, I mean, I just kept thinking, why doesn't he just tell her to call the FBI? I mean, I don't know. Why is he? I mean, pretty, pretty early on, he's tried to do the detective thing and everyone keeps pointing out you have no jurisdiction here. You're you're a highway patrol officer from a completely different state.
Yeah.
was very posh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
⁓
and it says remote self-sustained private Island. And, just like this, this mystery part is falling apart for me. What did you think about kind of that first part of the movie? felt like it just, the pacing was really slow and really.
Yeah, I would agree with that. There was way too much time spent with him riding his motorcycle around at the beginning and like laying on his couch and just hanging out at the police station talking to his buddies. It took a while for the plot to get kicked off, even when he got to the island. he basically drove up there and then had to try to get a ride to the island.
Yeah.
And he bribed a pilot to take him and the pilot didn't want to take him. He said, nobody is allowed to go there. But yeah, even when after he got there, it took a long time for anything to really kick off. So he gets to the island and there's these really creepy ladies that like welcome him kind of, but they're not welcoming at all. They don't want him there. And they make that clear.
No, right.
But then there's two dudes that are carrying this burlap sack that's dripping blood Did did you get like what was in that? I don't think I don't think I saw he goes to look he starts demanding to see what's in the bag and he looks and then he jumps and Did we we didn't see right?
Yeah.
No, he doesn't.
He doesn't see what's in the bag. We never see what's in the bag. He says what's in the bag a shark or something like it's we didn't see. Yeah, we didn't see any sharks in the water there. I don't know. Why would you assume that someone is carrying a shark a dead shark in a burlap sack? reference to nothing and nothing that we come back to. I mean.
Why would you assume that?
You
Maybe a lot of it ended up on the editing room floor, but it was weird.
Well, we do see at the end of the movie, I mean, I'll try not to give anything away, but we do see a person being carried in one of those sacks. But it wasn't, it wasn't similar enough that I was like, Oh, this is definitely a callback to that opening scene. I want to know what was in the bloody bag.
Yeah, we'll never know.
It was huge and bloody and moving still. was still alive, whatever it was.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would say for the
first hour, I would characterize it as there are a bunch of weird things happening on this island to try to create this sense of like mystery and unease, but they're all isolated things that there isn't a connecting thread. There isn't a...
There isn't a theme that I could pick up on these weird incidents. It's just like a Sporgasbord of like, let's do something weird and creepy because this is a horror movie. yeah.
By the way, after seeing it, would you classify this as a horror movie?
I guess so, but certainly different than Winnie the Pooh, Blood and Honey, or like it's not a slasher movie. It's more of a mystery thriller on, yeah, on the, on the edge of horror. I mean, there's, there's such a gray line between those two genres, I think.
psychological thriller.
I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying that I did not feel tension or scared at any point in this movie. It just seemed kind of like we're just watching Nick Cage walk around an island and have interactions with all these women who hate him.
I was so bored for the first part of the movie. It really doesn't start getting interesting until the last 15, 20 minutes.
Yeah.
Yeah, he has this dream sequence or it's not a dream. He wakes up from a dream and he thinks he sees Rowan is the name of the girl he's looking for. He thinks he sees her outside at night running around and he follows her to this barn and falls through the floor. Like it's supposed to be tense, I guess, but nothing happens. Nothing really happens at any of these places. He goes to the school to talk to.
Mm-hmm.
No.
Sister Rose, the teacher, and it's kind of creepy. She's very, like, reserved and doesn't want to tell him anything. And she says that the mother is making it all up, that she's refusing to accept that Rowan is dead, that she died in an accident. And he asked what happened. And Sister Rose says she'll burn to death.
Yeah.
And then says, what did you say? And she said, she burned to death. Like she changed it. so it's like, they're trying to be coy or whatever, but nothing happens in any of this. Nothing comes of it.
Yeah,
it was really, it was really boring to me and frustrating because I felt like everybody talked really cryptically in a like, not for any motivation that makes sense to each of the characters. It's just for the movie to be cryptic. So Nicolas Cage meets up with his ex fiance and she's just the whole time like this.
paranoid, they're watching us, you know, I have to be, you know, we have to be in secret and I have to be careful what I say. And like nothing she says makes sense. And, actually the, there was a point halfway through the movie where Nicolas Cage like gets really angry at her and starts like yelling at her. And I was like, yeah, because I would be so pissed off. Like, just tell me what, what happened. Why are you speaking in code? Nobody's, nobody's here. There aren't any listening devices. Just say.
what happened. And so, yeah, and in one of those interactions, we learned that, this girl that's missing is actually Nicolas Cage's daughter. So, you know, I don't know, big surprise. Yeah, so it gets, it gets really personal for him. I don't know, did you think that was a big twist or how did you? Yeah.
Little personal connection there.
No, I mean, who didn't see that coming?
Speaking of insane conversations, do you remember the conversation he had with the barmaid or whatever her name was about tomorrow? He kept asking like, what happens tomorrow? yeah, and she was, I don't know. It was this insane conversation about how it's, it's
about the Harvest Festival?
May 2nd or whatever and nothing happens tomorrow and they were just using the word tomorrow really strangely like it was a code word and I was lost. didn't I wrote it down at some point but I think I deleted it because I was like this must be a mistake but it was an insane conversation.
⁓ Yeah.
Yeah, there were just so many of those kinds of conversations that to me, was just like, what are, what the hell are these people talking about? And why do we care as the audience? It doesn't, it doesn't pay off at all.
There was another crazy conversation because he's looking for Rowan all over the island and he comes across the bee farm or whatever, whatever they call the place where they keep bees. ⁓ And he's allergic to bees. He's definitely allergic. He carries up bee pens and everything with him. ⁓
Yeah.
And bees
are, I should say real quick, bees are a critical part of their economy. It's like a bee, it's like a farm, but they sell a lot of bee stuff too. how they sustain their way of life through bees.
Yeah,
the bees are a huge part of the movie, but really affect nothing as far as I can tell. But he he's riding his bike through the bee farm and he bumps a hive and they start chasing him and he falls down the hill. It was so funny. It reminded me of the scene from Hot Rod where he's out in the woods punch dancing his rage out and he falls down the hill for like 20 minutes.
Yeah, I laughed at that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
⁓ it was so funny. But then he blacks out from all the bee stings and he wakes up and he's in the home of, sister summer's aisle. Who's like the head of the island, the commune or whatever. And he asks like, if she gave him his EpiPen or whatever that they don't have. And she says, no, I treated you in the old way. And then he doesn't ask any questions about what that means.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did write a note about that. was like, how did they save him? What, like, what was the old way? Did they never came back to it? It didn't pay off for anything. By the way, the sister summer aisles palace or out of mansion or whatever. That was another place where they just kept showing weird things happening. Like, this woman in a tub.
Better drill.
would just cover it in bees. And then it was just random shots that.
There is a naked
man in bed covered in like warts.
Yeah, like, okay, so this is a cult that's on this island. What the fuck is their religion? Like, what do they believe in? Did you pick it up?
No, so I was, it's some sort of pagan something or other. I don't know enough about paganism to be like, I'm recognizing stuff. So it could have been completely nonsensical or it could have meant something to somebody who knows something about paganism, but I was lost.
Right.
Yeah, I was lost too. It was
just all these disparate images of, yeah, maybe civilizing something.
He runs into men on the island, but none of them speak. Is that correct? Did any of them speak?
They did not. So it's mentioned or alluded to that the men are just there for breeding and it's women run the island. Like that's, that's their.
There was a funny scene where he was riding his bike around looking for Rowan and he comes across this man with a cart full of logs that had kind of tipped over and he was reloading the logs and Nicolas Cage is like, ⁓ I'll help you. And he's like, helping put stuff up and then fucks it up and the whole thing falls again. And he's just like,
Yeah.
He yells at the guy like, don't you speak? And then he just gets on his bike and rides away. Like, thanks for nothing, I guess.
Yeah.
Yeah. By the way, speaking of breeding, one of the, I have a number of quotes that I wrote down that I thought were iconic and representative of this movie. One of them is he's debating theology, I guess, with Sister Samurai. It wasn't a very coherent scene, but at one point he says breeding sounds like inbreeding to me. And then that's it.
What? Why does it? What's the inbreeding part of this?
Why does he assume that they're inbred? You can just bring men to breed with, right?
I don't know.
Yeah, it was just an argument to try to bring some substance, I guess, to the conversation, but it didn't make any sense. By the way, what do you think your ideal cult looks like if you had to start a cult on a remote island?
Um, yeah, I'm not really a cult person, so I don't think I've ever really thought about it, but I feel like you've thought about it a lot, probably. I don't.
Put you on the spot there.
Hahaha
What? Me? I'm not a cult person at all. But since you
ask, here's my five point plan for how to create a cult out of a robot eye.
I don't think that I would want to be a leader of anything, but I'd maybe be like a maintenance guy in a cult that has a nice climate.
you'd be one of those log stackers.
for sure, but breed me.
Yeah. And maybe I'm too critical of the movie because I think as a cult leader, one of the most fun pranks to pull would be to have an outsider come and then just stage all these like all this random shit like freaked them out. I'd be like, yeah, you don't believe in the sun god of the fifth dimension, you know, whatever. So
Your cult is just a giant escape room on an island. They've got to crack the code.
Yeah. Oh, that,
uh, yeah, that'd be awesome. Just year round plan escape rooms and, uh, kidnap strangers or lure strangers to the Island and see if they can get out of it. love it. No, no, no, no, no. Has to be really elaborate. Year is long planning. Um, yeah. Uh, make sure that they can bribe a, uh,
You could just go work at an escape room if you want to.
You've got to fly in.
remote bush pilot to land on the island. I mean, speaking of which, so this is the whole, this is the whole story. I mean, this is the spoiler part of it is there really is no missing girl. They've just lured Nick Cage and onto the island and created this complex situation. Yeah. And
It's a huge ruse.
I was like, why? There's gotta be way easier ways to find men to sacrifice.
They lured him there as a sacrifice because their previous harvest was the worst on record. And so they were like, we need a sacrifice to to fix our harvest problems. because he noticed like they were out of honey for his breakfast or whatever. And he was like, I thought you guys made honey. ⁓ But once he's there, why continue with the ruse? You've got him.
Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah. Just, just put them in that burlap sack and hold them till the harvest festival.
The movie could have been him getting the letter at the beginning, flying to the island and then just jump straight to the climax where they sacrifice him.
Yeah.
why even make it hard for him to get to the island? Why not have, the fiance come get him, take him to the island. And then, yeah, there are all these points where he could have been like, ⁓ man, this is too hard.
He was willing to come. Yeah, they made him work for it.
Yeah, I don't know. It didn't make sense. The whole movie could have been like 25 minutes long.
Yeah, and there was, uh, there were all these diversions. So one of the, I don't know, big supposedly scary scenes is he's looking for the girl and he thinks she's in this like watery flooded crypt. he, yeah. And by the way, would you, would you have gone down there? This is this, it's this graveyard. There's this crypt. It's flooded. It's the middle of the night. He's on this creepy Island, all this.
like a cistern or something.
weird shit happening around him and he's freaked out and he like goes in and they and like some woman shuts the gate and traps him in the crib like why did they do all this stuff it doesn't doesn't make sense
He dove right into that disgusting ass water in a crypt and his eyes open looking around trying to find the girl. He's probably got so many parasites in his eyeballs now. ⁓ Yeah, he jumped right in. He was ready for a swim.
Yeah.
You
Yeah, he would have died anyway.
But it was, I mean, more than it was just confusing it was just kind of boring like you said earlier, I wasn't scared. I wasn't, I don't know, tense.
Yeah, I would agree with that. was it was all kind of a waste of time.
Yeah. Well, it all leading up to the Harvest Festival where they sacrifice him in a Wicker Man thing. don't know. But before that, kind of, they're doing this procession in the festival. And I thought one of the funniest setups is him. Well, first of all, him like karate chopping sister honey into the wall.
He loved that.
He kicked her in the face too.
Yeah.
It was such a goofy scene. And then he steals this bear costume. Why did he need the bear costume?
I don't know. I loved it though. He
was in like a bear fur at the festival and trying to blend in and it was so funny to see him running around in that costume.
Yeah.
The most conspicuous person at the festival just running around like ducking behind people.
Nobody else was dressed like an animal. Yeah.
was really funny. It was unintentionally funny for sure. They didn't want that scene to be that funny, I don't think.
Yeah, but you know, it kind of kicked up a notch when he thinks he's found the girl that they're about to sacrifice the girl. And then he goes and rescues her and she, she runs and she's like, you know, run this way and, then come to find out she's just leading him back into a trap. And so they capture him and, yeah, then they, they kill him. Did you expect him to escape?
Were you surprised?
I don't know. I didn't care. Honestly, I had no expectations. I thought he might escape, but it didn't surprise me necessarily that he died.
Yeah.
Yeah, so that if you've seen the memes before of Nicolas Cage screaming, not the bees. this is the scene where that comes from, but it was actually cut from the theatrical version. Did you watch the theatrical version or the uncut?
Yeah,
I did watch the theatrical version and it was not in there. I didn't know that it wasn't in there. I was kind of expecting it at any point and I was disappointed that I didn't get to see it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But there are couple of
minutes where there's they're torturing him before they kill him, which didn't really make any sense. But they didn't even like say this is part of their pagan ritual or whatever. there is, but a lot of the torturing happens off camera. just hear him yelling. ⁓ yeah. I would have loved to see, that. mean, Nick Cage was cooking. So, my favorite line in the whole movie.
he was hamming it up. It was the best.
And probably any of the movies we've watched so far. Killing me won't bring back your goddamn honey. And then I guess it's the sister of Samurai, this is all happening off camera. She just says, but I know it will. Afterwards, I was like.
This is choice. Choice necklace gauge.
The other thing that didn't really make sense is they killed the bush pilot. Nick Cage finds him dead on the beach with his hands cut off and maybe his mouth sewn shut or something. Why didn't they sacrifice him? Do they need two guys? They just killed him to kill him, I guess.
Yeah.
They just killed
him and left him on the beach. And it didn't make sense because, Nicolas Cage had bribed this guy to get on the island. And like you said, he didn't want to take Nicolas Cage there, but the whole thing was a ruse. They actually wanted Nicolas Cage to be on the island. So why punish the pilot for bringing him to the island? They did what he wanted, they wanted him to do.
And he's like the pilot who brings them their mail and food and like supplies and stuff.
and I assume takes their honey to go sell in the outside world.
Yeah, and not only did they kill him, they sunk his plane. They sunk his seaplane. So... They're fucked now. I don't know how they get off the island.
Right. It made no sense.
I'll take a little bit time later to compare this movie to the original, but this is a good example of a plot point where they kind of changed so much that it didn't make sense, but kept some of the scenes from the original just because they're in the original. So in the original, the cop flies a plane to the island.
Ugh.
and it's the cops plane and they sink the cops plane in the original. So in the remake, they sink the plane, like you said, it's like, why? There's a completely different character. Why do this? Why cut yourself off from the outside world now?
Yeah, I didn't know that about the original, but yeah, it doesn't make sense to keep that in.
the epilogue of the movie is essentially we see the fiance and sister honey in the real world. basically doing it all over again and seducing, to
this is just a honeypot scene where they're trying to lure in some new blood for the... either mating or sacrificing, I don't know.
Yeah, we're not really sure what
the, what the greater ruse is. since this is such an elaborate ruse, you have to set up, years and years ahead of time, all these men, just in case you have a bad harvest and have to sacrifice them to the pagan gods to get your honey back.
I guess so.
How did they know how to look normal? They're in this like cult dress in these like weird, you know, 1800s outfits and no technology. And now they're like in these like hot outfits and yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, they're at like a swanky nightclub in LA. Do
they rent an apartment on the mainland somewhere that they can go back to and keep all their clothes and...
Yeah, they have a Instagram somewhere in the sister somewhere, I'll house where they can like keep up on the latest trends.
Yeah, I got a Tinder account.
Yeah.
what else did we miss from the movie?
I had to note that flashlight technology has gotten so much better in the last 20 years.
Yeah, that is true.
He's got when he was out looking for Rowan at night. I was like, he can't see a fucking thing with that. And I I've been rewatching the X-Files recently and in the early seasons of that, their flashlights are terrible. I remember when I was a Boy Scout, I used to have this huge mag light. It was like 3D cell and it was still the dimmest fucking light that you could imagine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now we have flashlights on our phones that are better.
That's actually interesting. I never really thought about that. It doesn't seem like a technology that would rapidly advance. What is it that is it LED bulbs that...
I think it's LEDs
and lenses. They've perfected the design.
science corner on the worst movie podcast.
Yeah.
I had a note by the way, uh, papyrus font and the credits. Did you notice that? Yeah.
I loved that. I know what you did.
That was why
I watched it with Amanda and she immediately was like, is that Papyrus?
Yeah, I mean, when did Avatar Camp come out? Was that around this time?
ooooh,
I think it was! let me look
2009.
So Avatar stole it from Wicker Man. There you go.
I guess so.
Did you notice Aaron Eckhart in the first scene at the truck stop? He was at the counter at the diner or whatever at the truck stop and he just has one line, you got it and like leaves. Him and the have worked together a bunch.
No, I didn't.
Interesting. This is, this was a couple years before The Dark Knight came out. So was he a big, he was a big actor by that point already, wasn't he?
Yeah, I don't know how famous he was, but he was pretty accomplished.
Yeah. Everybody on the island had plant themed names. Like moss and rose and.
yeah.
Well was sister honey.
Well, yeah.
Is honey a plant? I guess.
I don't think so.
But yeah, that was kind of interesting. I don't know. didn't think much of it, but it was something.
Yeah.
By way, are there islands like summer's aisle out there in, in the U S at least, like where there's no technology, no roads. I mean, you can still buy private islands and I guess do whatever you want on them, but I'm just curious if those exist. Like are there communities and cults like that?
Yeah, I don't know.
Well, I know, like up in Vancouver, there's some really remote islands. I don't know if they're completely devoid of any roads or technology, but maybe. I mean, that's the same kind of area, Washington State, Vancouver, so maybe.
Yeah.
Yeah. Interesting. By the way, this is a remote private island. Why was there a hotel on the island? Nicolas Cage checks into the hotel motel. why did he presume that he would be able to stay at a hotel?
It was a nice one.
I don't know. He was just ready to go, I think. He showed up with no plan.
Yeah. Again, that's another thing that was from the original, but they had, it seemed normal in the original because it was just like a normal inn, like a British inn slash pub. And he just got an extra room and, but here, yeah, they didn't, they didn't give that background that, and, then the original one, looked like a normal town. wasn't like so remote. so, I guess.
backwards is this? Like there weren't even real roads or anything like that here.
Right. He didn't even bring a bag with him, did he?
I felt like I saw a small bag because I was wondering, I was wondering, how do you pack for this? And it seemed like he had just like a little, one of those like, you know, carry totes. ⁓ And yeah, I was just wondering, you know, do you pack several jackets and outfits or how long, how long do you plan to be on a remote island searching for a missing girl?
Mmm.
Yeah, like I would if you told me that you're coming to a remote island, I'd pack for like a camping trip. I'd bring a sleeping bag.
Yeah. Yeah. I I probably overpack anyway, but yeah, I'd bring, you you know, stuff to cook on and, know, a bunch of food and like, wouldn't. Yeah.
Well, when he gets to the island, the pilot basically drops him off at the shore and is like, good luck. I'm not going to help you any further. And then he basically climbs a mountain to get up to the town. And Amanda was like, I got to see his footwear because he's in a suit.
⁓ Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Yeah, it's just a weird, you know, paradox that you climb a mountain and then are like, time to check into the hotel.
Yeah. Another example of him just being a bad cop. He's having a conversation with the summer's aisle, sister summer's aisle. And he's at and they say they only want girls on the island that men are just for breeding. And he says, what if somebody has a boy? And she says, well, that depends. And he didn't ask us another follow up question. Like depends on what?
Yeah.
I loved the scene where he's showing the doll to the teacher, I think, the whole, did it get burned?
Yeah, ⁓
that was on my list of quotes. How did it get burned? How did it get burned? How did it get burned? He says it three times.
Yeah,
it was picnic cage.
Yeah, he really cooks there. Yeah, that's towards the end.
Yeah, I love his intensity.
⁓
I'll take a second or a few minutes to compare to the original. watch the original. I think it was a good movie. it's weird comparing the two and I hate being one of those like the original was better.
I think
objectively it was from what I've read though.
Yeah, objectively, it was better. And it was, it was, ⁓ it was better because like I said, the story just kind of made more sense. this, the cop gets, you know, the spoilers for this, it kind of follows the same structure, but just some of the setup makes more sense that this cop gets an anonymous letter about a missing girl in this community. And this is part of his jurisdiction. So it's just, you know, he's there because this is his job.
And he's there to investigate a missing girl and it's not his daughter. know, he doesn't have any like ex fiance there. It wasn't like trying to say anything, you know, more about him and his relationship to the community. was just a cop investigating the silent. And I liked it because the themes there actually made a lot of sense. So it's this pagan community. You, you hear it's not a deep dive into their religion, but
What you hear makes sense. It's cohesive. They're basically like, you know, we're, we're, rethought religion and like looked back to the pagan rights from the, whenever it was 1600s and felt like that was, it made sense to adopt and I don't know. It makes sense as cohesive what they do, their rituals, like there's some grounding in history and reality. And one of the biggest themes is like, there's this big
juxtaposition between the cop who's deeply religious as a Christian and the pagan community. Like there's a bunch of, there's a lot of sex and nudity in the original. Like there's this one scene where like his first night there, he, he's going for a walk and he sees this field where just like this giant orgy is happening. And he's just like shocked about the public decency. And like there are all these moments where he's just like, you know, this is
you know, this is still a Christian nation and, ⁓ you know, this isn't, I'm going to write this up in my report and blah, blah, blah. And he's just, and he's also tempted by sister honey and, in this movie, that character. so like her presence makes sense. Whereas in the cage one, it was like, kind of like that character was just in and out for no. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, it didn't really make sense.
She was just a punching bag.
And so he was like wrestling with his own like temptation and his own faith. And so, you know, the themes made sense. The plot made sense. The last, five minutes similar where he's about to get burned and he's just like, you everyone's dialed it up a notch and it's like, wow, this is powerful acting, you know, and, you know, moving as he's like trying to hold fast to his Christian faith in light of this pagan ritual where he knows he's going to die.
Whereas in the neck age one, he's just like, not the bees. And it's just, don't know that the dialogue at the, at the remake just doesn't make sense. You know, a lot of times because it has no context. So yeah.
Yeah, the
original had Christopher Lee in it too, didn't it? Nice.
Yeah, yeah, that's
the villain in it.
Yeah.
And the lead, was also very accomplished Ed Woodward.
Yes, his name, the actor's name was Ed Woodward and I noticed in the Nick Cage movie, his character is named Edward Malice and his fiance's name is Willow Woodward. So there's an Ed Woodward connection in the remake with Nick Cage too.
So was a nod to the original actor. Yeah. A lot of the other character names were the same. So there was a Willow, there was a Miss Rose, it's not Sister Rose. There was no matriarchy in the original, but a lot of the same characters were there.
Yeah, I think so.
From what I understand, the people involved with the original Wicker Man distanced themselves from the remake entirely. In fact, I think that they sued to get their name removed from the marketing when it came out. So yeah, I think they knew it was gonna be bad.
Yeah.
Yeah, they actually, I think they ended up making a sequel slash remake separate from the 2006. Yeah. Which I have not seen. So what's what's your overall verdict for the movie?
The Wicker Tree.
⁓ I didn't hate it. I thought that the premise was interesting. It obviously was drawing from source material that was better than what this was, but it wasn't good. I think that the beginning, like we said, really dragged for a while. It didn't feel like a horror movie to me. I looked it up on IMDb and they said it's a dark comedy, which made me laugh
man, I laughed way more in this movie than anything else. Maybe just because of Nick Cage. ⁓
I don't think it's yeah, I don't think it's a comedy
if you're laughing at the movie, not with the movie.
well they intended for it to be a mystery thriller but in actuality they made a dark comedy unintentionally It wasn't scary. I think horror is kind of a misnomer for it I do think this could be maybe a cult favorite for like Nick Cage fans But Nick Cage has so many movies where he's more Nick Cage in them than this and I think that this
Sure.
Yeah.
movie kind of commits the worst sin of being pointless. Like if they had just captured him when he got to the island, it's a 20 minute movie and the rest doesn't matter. So I don't know, I would give it up maybe one and a
Right.
Yeah, I didn't like this movie. just thought it was, like I said, the pacing was off. I was bored most of the movie and I had to fight to not look at my phone or do other things. was just, I mean, even, I even struggled to like write down notes because I was like, so much was, it wasn't so bad that I was like, yeah, I can't wait to talk about this. It was just like,
was boring. don't know what to say about this. And yeah, I was just confused the whole time. So one star movie for me.
Yeah, I tried to keep notes for a while and then I was like, none of this is paying off, so I'm just gonna stop.
Yeah, by the way, I should also say about the original I felt like the things that happened to the cop and the bruise that they were making kind of made sense in terms of that like that was part of their ritual and their test for whether he was worthy of sacrifice, which they never even like, all you need is one line to just say that like, ⁓ we did this to see if you would.
Mm-hmm.
yada yada yada. And I'd be like, okay, that that makes sense why they did all this.
Coulda been.
could have been.
your alt pic for this movie?
I went with The Village Night Shyamalan. my God. What's the thought it was kind of similar culty, mystery vibes. I think it's not generally a great
I'm not going to work here anymore.
reviewed movie, but I thought it was way more interesting and it did have a little bit better of a payoff in the end. I think that the twist, but I enjoyed the village a lot more than I enjoyed this and it felt similar to me.
Yeah, I mean, I agree that I enjoyed the Village more than this, which isn't saying much, but yeah, I don't know that that's one of my favorite Night movies, but my alternate pick is In the Company of Men, directed by Neil LaBoot, and it stars Aaron Eckhart. Have you seen that movie? I actually saw it in theaters and I've rewatched it.
No.
in the last year or two and five star movie for me. It's a subtle movie and a little slow moving at first, but I've seen it described as a horror movie that's not a horror movie. I mean, it's not, it's not a mystery thriller or anything like that. It's just a kind of a, it was a low budget. don't, I don't want to give too much away, but hopefully not.
interesting.
setting expectations too high, but I really liked that movie.
worth checking out.
Yeah.
Well, I think that's about it for the Wicker Man. If you like this episode, please subscribe on Apple or Spotify. If you have any suggestions, send us an email at the worst movie podcast at gmail.com. If you have comments about the episodes or suggestions for movies you'd like us to cover in the future. Don't be like my sister who was like, yeah, you guys are doing a horror. You should do arachnophobia.
I was like, wait a second, that's 93 % on Rotten Tomatoes. You clearly don't understand what our podcast is about. So please only send suggestions for bad movies for us to cover. I'm Ade.
you
I'm Aaron, thanks for listening to the Worst Movie Podcast.