When Good Directors Go Bad: The Wicker Man (2006, Neil LaBute)

Posted by Peter Smith
The setup: Horror-movie remakes are a dime a dozen, but one of the most potentially interesting director-project pairings was Neil LaBute’s The Wicker Man, which found the always-provocative writer-director taking a stab at the horror genre.

What went wrong?: LaBute often gets taken to task for his misogyny, especially in films like In the Company of Men and The Shape of Things. I’ve always found the accusations a little reductive, but it’s hard to argue against them in regards to The Wicker Man. The story basically boils down to this: there’s a beehive-inspired community where women rule and men serve them silently, and the hero (Nicolas Cage) gets manipulated by the women into becoming a human sacrifice. The community's leader, Sister Summersisle, tells Cage's Edward Malus (pronounced "Male-us" — get it?) that "men have their uses. . . for procreation." Clearly, LaBute is trying to say something about men’s fears of female power, though it’s all so ridiculous that it’s hard to say what that may be.

Not that Malus is an especially sympathetic hero. In the 1973 original, the protagonist is a staunch Christian who faces off against equally zealous pagans. Here, LaBute drops the dichotomy, instead countering the crazy beehive people with one of Cage’s most spectacularly unhinged characters. While he’s initially unsure whether he wants to visit the island, Malus becomes a sexist autocrat upon his arrival, barging into residences and schools and waving his police badge around, proclaiming the women to be "freaks" while being himself a less-than-exemplary representative for "normal" society.  

Cage may be the closest thing Hollywood has nowadays to a late-period Brando, inspired when the material is good and equally inexplicable when it fails him. Here he goes so far over the top that the movie becomes a seemingly endless string of "bad laughs," and by the climax we’re practically rooting for the character to get his comeuppance. I somehow doubt that was LaBute’s goal.

The result is a film that feels schizophrenic. It contains plenty of shock tactics and nightmare imagery to appeal to the horror crowd, but ends up coming off as a bizarre — if mostly unintentional — comedy. The original was no great shakes as a horror movie either, but it played its story fairly straight. But by the time Cage starts running around in a bear suit at a human sacrifice ritual, where it’s revealed that virtually every female character in the film was in on the conspiracy (those women — they’ll take you down if they have a chance!), it’s long since become impossible to take The Wicker Man seriously. It’s entertaining to watch, but that doesn’t make it good.

The fallout: The Wicker Man is an abject failure as a horror film, but Cage’s performance has garnered a cult following, judging by all the YouTube videos inspired by the movie. LaBute’s next film, Lakeview Terrace, is scheduled for release next year, and while it appears to be in LaBute’s tradition of films that ask difficult questions, I doubt any of them will be quite so compelling as "How'd it get burned? HOW’D IT GET BURNED???"

— Paul Clark


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Posted Oct 30 2007, 01:00 PM
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Comments

sean said:

having seen that compilation countless times, but never seen the film itself, i have often wondered how it indeed got burned.

October 30, 2007 1:17 PM

Vern said:

You know what's weird, this remake has genuinely become a cult movie on its own, in a different way than the original. I think the original is great, this one is not, but I actually own this one and not the original. The unrated DVD version is of course the best, because apparently the theatrical cut didn't have the hilarious "OH GOD, NOT THE BEES!" scene. But thank you for quoting my favorite bit of overacting, "HOWDITGITBURNED? HOWDIGUHBURNED?"

I'm not a Labute fan, but I don't buy the charges of misogyny on this one. Just because the character kicks Leelee Sobieski and calls everybody bitches doesn't mean the movie does. I think he was trying to make some kind of black comedy about gender relations. Notice how Cage is constantly asking the women questions and then not listening to their answers and interrupting before they finish. I also get a kick out of the scene where he walks into the classroom and obliviously erases the detailed notes on the chalkboard just to be dramatic and write the name of the missing girl.

October 30, 2007 1:30 PM

sean said:

also, very astute observation regarding cage and latter-day brando, though it seems that cage hit that point much earlier - which makes me wonder if we're in for a exponential version of 'the island of dr moreau'.

October 30, 2007 1:49 PM

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October 30, 2007 2:21 PM

bilge said:

I've always kind of had a soft spot for this one. The only way to remake THE WICKER MAN is to go weirder with it and, well, they did. And I think most of the laughs in the movie were, indeed, intentional.

I just wish they had found a way to restage the naked wall-humping dance from the original.

October 31, 2007 12:27 PM

LCosgrove said:

"While he’s initially unsure whether he wants to visit the island, Malus becomes a sexist autocrat upon his arrival, barging into residences and schools and waving his police badge around, proclaiming the women to be "freaks" while being himself a less-than-exemplary representative for "normal" society."

Yes. Thus, LaBute's film is misanthropic, not misogynistic. It finds everyone equally crappy.

Also, count me into the camp that finds the humor in this film intentional. I mean, you don't stick Nicolas Cage in a giant bear suit with a straight face.

November 2, 2007 7:45 AM

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