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The Wicker Tree
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Anchor Bay Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Ethan Stevenson (20th June 2012). |
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The Film
 Nearly 40 years after making his directorial debut, an over 80-year-old Robin Hardy returns to the task, at the helm of “The Wicker Tree”, a pseudo-sequel, sorta-remake, of “The Wicker Man” (1973), the film that made him a name (if not exactly a household one). There’s a sort of circular logic to it all. Hardy burst onto the scene as the no-name name appearing on the “directed by” card in front of the now cult-classic, which was based on a best-selling novel from the late sixties. Yet, despite a well respected, if perhaps slightly overrated, debut, Hardy mostly languished in obscurity, writing the occasional book and failing to get films financed. Hardy attached himself to two more films, “The Fantasist” (1986)—a film he both wrote and directed—and “Forbidden Sun” (1989), which he merely wrote, over the next three decades. In the meantime, Hardy’s first feature—eventually solidified as a seminal Scottish horror picture of the seventies, at least in certain cinematic circles—was remade by playwright Neil LaBute, starring Nicolas “Not the Bees” Cage, without the involvement of anyone attached to the original, least of all Robin Hardy. As noted extensively, the remake is an abominable film that nevertheless has seeped into the cultural consciousness, if only for the utter and totally insane awfulness of everything from the brilliantly bizarre bear-suitery to, yep… “the bees”. In some ways the remake sullied the reputation of the original. In others, it probably inflated its greatness. In 2006—the same year LaBute’s crime against cinema graced the silver screen—Hardy wrote a novel titled “Cowboys for Christ”. The book featured many of the same concepts explored in “The Wicker Man”—namely, a conflict between Paganism and Christianity—and eventually served as the basis for “The Wicker Tree”, a film that Hardy promises is but the second chapter to a cinematic trilogy. Is it absurd that Hardy has decided to return to the source material of his debut after such a long hiatus? Mostly yes, but it’s only ridiculous because he’s decided to turn his singular feature into a franchise. And I do see at least a little logic to the whole thing. It’s obvious that Hardy’s trying to erase the evils of the remake by returning, and reiterating what he was trying to say with the first film. That doesn’t mean “The Wicker Tree” isn’t wholly unnecessary and, to tell the truth, about as awful as LaBute’s film. Cute pop-country singer Beth Boothby (newcomer Brittania Nicol; she has an “and introducing” in front of he name, meaning she’ll probably never be in another movie and probably rightfully so, considering her unnatural, unintentionally hilarious performance) and her equally cute-cowboy boyfriend Steve (Henry Garrett) are off to the UK to spread the word of God. But Beth and Steve, both evangelical Christians from Texas, soon discover their message and mission is falling deaf ears, particularly in rural Scotland, where Beth spends her days giving converts at the local cathedrals. The two Texans soon encounter Sir Lachlan Morrison (Graham McTavish) and his lovely wife Delia (Jacqueline Leonard), the laird and lady of Tressock, a small coastal village in the lowlands, and are immediately taken in by their outwardly understanding and accepting demeanor. Beth and Steve find the town strange, particularly because they never see any children, almost, ever, but admit that it’s somehow welcoming. Sure, the people are weird—and include such strange splashes of local color as an old man who walks around with a crow on his shoulder, stuttering rhyming riddles and peculiar phrases that amount to mostly nonsense. But, before long, the two clean Christians, both saving themselves for marriage, find it difficult to not be seduced by the salaciousness of these Scots, who worship—it turns out—a pagan mother goddess. Steve is charmed by Lolly (Honeysuckle Weeks, which is a truly terrific name), a sexy horse trainer who likes to bathe in the local lake—totally topless, of course. Beth is smitten with the idea of being crowned the May Day Queen, and all of the frilly festivities that come with the title. The couple’s resolve in tested by the town of Tressock. And I can’t say both escape unscathed. The original “Wicker Man”, if nothing else offered an interesting discourse on faith, pitting the deeply devout detective played by Edward Woodward against the paganist townspeople and lord played by Christopher Lee (who makes a fleeting cameo in this newer film, although it’s unclear if he’s actually Lord Summerisle or another, similar, character altogether). I don’t think the original is an amazing film, but it certainly is an interesting one and generally well made. “The Wicker Tree”, on the other hand, attempts to explore similar themes by taking born-again Evangelicals and putting them up against a seemingly sane group who just happen to practice ritualistic human sacrifice on May 1st. While the idea that the two innocent Americans are slowly corrupted and made to question their beliefs amidst the mysteries of the Tressock townsfolk is sound, and Hardy’s intent seems to be a juxtaposition of religious ideologies as he did the first time around, honestly, it just doesn’t work. Even if Hardy’s grander ideas are interesting, his execution in the sequel is awkward; he gets too wrapped up in the weirdness of it all—abandoning the larger theme for scenes of sloppy, subtitled, sex (more on that in the audio section below) and exceptionally bleak, misplaced humor. In place of subtext and horror, Hardy goes for coitus and black comedy. Which is exactly why the film doesn’t work. The script is a mess; flip-flopping between seriousness and silliness, making mention of the townspeople’s entire motivation in passing, in a scene about 20 minutes in that last less than 15 seconds. (It seems Sir Lachlan’s power plant has made the men sterile and most of the women barren). At times, the movie is just flat out crazy, with events devolving into a series of scenes featuring anything from cannibalism and a bit of ye olde fashion ultra-violence, to more eccentric strangeness. Most of the film is just uncomfortably awkward, especially the scenes between the old butler and the house maid… which, if you ever see, well… let’s just say, one part of particular note involves an argument about eating eyeballs and stitching up some torn testicles. (The image of an old Scotsman laying on a kitchen table, kilt hiked up, and an old woman sewing between his legs… is something I hope to have burned from my brain.) I’m not opposed to over-sexed, uber-violent films, with an avant-garde twist. But “The Wicker Tree” was just a bit too stupidly depraved for me. Too tonally twisted. Too undoubtedly unnecessary, in the fact that it seems little more than a coded remake that regurgitates identical ideas to the original almost to a fault. Sure, Robin Hardy may have made this sequel to his version of “The Wicker Man” to somehow overwrite the errors of the Cage-tastic American remake, but in point of fact, he’s just made a movie about as bad as that terrible thing.
Video
Direct from a digital source, “The Wicker Tree” the 2.40:1 widescreen 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 encoded transfer results in a truly gorgeous blu-ray. Shot with RED cameras, the film has a clean grain-free sheen and sharp detailing (especially in clothing and the intricate texture of rural Scotland; you know, castle walls and all that). Colors are surprisingly vibrant—especially the gorgeous greens—and skin tones are natural. Contrast is perfect, with bright whites and some of the best blacks I’ve ever seen from RED footage. Perfect? Perhaps not. But only because director Robin Hardy and cinematographer Jan Pester have filtered a few scenes to give off an overly smooth, silky, almost ethereal look. This intentional post-processing effect in a handful of scenes seemingly robs faces (and exposed portions of… flesh) of rich texture. I’m not really one to deduct points for directorial intentions; still flawless this is not. One scene, right after a fade up from Lachlan reminiscing about his youth—which is where Christopher Lee makes his cameo—also shows a tiny trace of hellish noise. Otherwise, Anchor Bay’s encode is without problems; I spotted no errors like aliasing or egregious compression artifacts. The disc is also free of issues like edge enhancement or aggressive noise reduction. “The Wicker Tree” may be an ugly, unsatisfying and heavily flawed film but, visually, it’s quite splendid and the Blu-ray transfer is great.
Audio
Music is an integral part of the plot in “The Wicker Tree” and as a result, the English TrueHD 5.1 lossless surround mix’s greatest strength is the nicely rich and dynamic soundtrack, with full-bodied instrumentation and lyrics. She may not be a talented actress, but Brittania Nicol has a nice voice, suited for the hymns and pop-country songs she’s saddled with singing. John Scott and Keith Easdale’s score is moody and effective, extending into a deep low-end, providing much of the tracks most aggressive bass. Surrounds are nicely active, adding appropriate atmosphere, but much of the film is quite reserved and exists in a closed off world of quiet interiors. Dialogue reproduction is fine, appearing clean and true. Personally, my ear is pretty attuned to accented English, and while some (Americans) might have an issue, I really didn’t. There was one odd quirk that I found quite amusing. The only time hard-coded subtitles appear in the entire film is during a breathy sex scene between Lolly and the local policeman. The weird thing? The subtitles seemed totally unnecessary to me. The dialog isn’t whispered or otherwise unintelligible and in fact, if it was an issue with the accents… it really can’t be, because the two actors in said scene probably have the least affected speech in the whole cast. What’s the deal? Authoring error or an intentional joke on Hardy’s part (which is the way of much of the “humor” in this film). The disc includes a Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono dub and subtitles in English and Spanish.
Extras
“The Wicker Tree” includes a few superfluous supplements; namely a fluffy making-of featurette and a collection of unimportant deleted scenes. A theatrical trailer for “The Wicker Tree” (2.40:1 widescreen 1080p, 1 minute 57 seconds) has also been included. The disc is authored with optional bookmarks and the resume playback function. “The Making of ‘The Wicker Tree’” (1.78:1 480p, 12 minutes 15 seconds) is a by the book behind-the-scenes featurette piece, with canned interviews featuring cast and crew only speaking in general superficialities with film clips and some BTS footage cut in too. Calling the ten scenes found in the deleted scenes reel (1.78:1 480p, 11 minutes 41 seconds) "deleted" is a bit of half-truth. Most of the material is in fact the odd-and-ends of scenes found in the finished film, making the reel more like a series of extended takes. There’s more from the born again church group in Texas, a few extra bits with Sir Lachlan and Lady Delia, and a particularly peculiar and pathetic moment where Beth Boothby throws a torch at the stuttering man with the crow... The disc also features two pre-menu bonus trailers: - “Battle Royale” on Blu-ray and DVD (1080p, 1 minute 46 seconds). - “The Divide” on Blu-ray and DVD (2.35:1 widescreen 1080p, 1 minute 59 seconds).
Packaging
“The Wicker Tree” comes to Blu-ray from Starz/Anchor Bay Home Entertainment. The film arrives in an eco-elite keep case, and is pressed onto a Region-A locked, single-layer BD-25.
Overall
“The Wicker Tree” is pretty bad. Plain and simple, it’s a convoluted and conflicted film that’s more awkward than anything else. Sometimes, it’s creepy. Most of the time it seems like a really tasteless joke. Is it supposed to be funny? Even if it is, that doesn’t mean the many flaws are suddenly forgivable. On the other hand, although it’s light on extras, the Blu-ray is—in a purely technically sense—very impressive, with near perfect video and strong lossless audio. Basically, it’s good disc, but a bad film.
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