DIRECTOR: Robin Hardy
PRODUCER: Peter Snell
PRODUCTION CO: British Lion
SCREENPLAY: Anthony Schaffer
PHOTOGRAPHY: Harry Waxman
EDITOR: Eric Boyd-Perkins
MUSIC: Paul Giovanni
WITH: Edward Woodward (Sgt Neil Howie), Christopher Lee (Lord Summerisle), Britt Ekland (Willow MacGregor), Lesley Mackie (Daisy), Diane Cilento (Miss Rose), Ingrid Pitt (Librarian), Lindsay Kemp (Alder MacGregor), Russell Waters (Harbour Master), Aubrey Morris (Old Gardener/Gravedigger), Irene Sunter (May Morrison), Jennifer Martin (Myrtle Morrison) 

REVIEWS

“Robin Hardy's slow-burning chiller, from a screenplay by Anthony Shaffer (author of Sleuth, and brother of Peter), was once hailed by the magazine Cinefantastique as ‘the Citizen Kane of horror movies’.

Christopher Lee, who was proud of his performance as Lord Summerisle, never lost faith in the film's quality and reportedly even offered to pay for critics' cinema seats. Edward Woodward (up until that point best known for the TV series Callan) plays Sergeant Howie, an uptight Calvinist policeman who travels to Summerisle, a remote island off the west coast of Scotland, to investigate reports of a local girl's disappearance.

Once there, he finds his solid Christian beliefs confronted by a community dabbling in all manner of dubious pagan practices (including sun worship, fertility rituals and Britt Ekland, or her body double, dancing naked), and begins to suspect the islanders of knowing more about what happened to the missing girl than they're letting on.

The Wicker Man is influential not just on subsequent horror cinema, but on the thriller genre in general in the way it sets an artfully composed series of traps for its unwitting protagonist, expertly wrong-footing both him and the audience until the devastating ending, set to the world's most disturbing rendition of the folksong Summer is Icumen In, which makes it clear that Sergeant Howie was correct in assuming there was an island-wide conspiracy – but horribly wrong about its precise nature.”

— Anne Billson, Guardian

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Dunedin     
Wednesday, 08 March, 7.30pm

Whanganui    
Monday, 20 March, 7.00pm

​Nelson    
Tuesday, 18 April, 6.00pm

Canterbury
Monday, 01 May, 7.00pm

Hamilton     
Monday, 08 May, 6.30pm

Palmerston North  
Wednesday, 24 May, 6.00pm​

Queenstown  
Tuesday, 12 September, 8.15pm

​Auckland
Monday, 09 October, 6.15pm

​Wellington    
Monday, 30 October, 6.15pm​

​​​New Plymouth     
Wednesday, 22 November, 6.00pm

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