PREVIEW
An (almost) daily preview for each and every movie on the line-up for London's biggest, baddest horror festival, the Film 4 Frightfest
THE WICKER TREE
Director: Robin Hardy
Starring:
Brittania Nicol – Beth
Henry Garrett - Steve
Graham McTavish – Sir Lachlan Morrison
Honeysuckle Weeks – Lolly
Christopher Lee – Old Man
Graham McTavish – Sir Lachlan Morrison
Honeysuckle Weeks – Lolly
Christopher Lee – Old Man
They say:
"From the makers of the cult classic THE WICKER MAN, and based on director Robin Hardy's own novel ‘Cowboys for Christ’, a Texas gospel singer and her boyfriend, both devout evangelical Christians, are sent to Scotland on a mission to spread the word of God. After a concert in Glasgow Cathedral the pair are invited by Sir Lachlan Morrison to preach in his remote border village, but soon the horrifying reality dawns on the couple as they learn the true significance of the Celtic pagan rites. Reuniting Hardy with legendary actor Christopher Lee for a story in the style of the 1973 landmark fantasy comes the most eagerly anticipated horror movie of the year. "
We say:
Gotta admit, this one pretty much flew right under the radar for me and I don't know all that much about it. On first sight however it certainly sets some pretty fucking big alarm bells ringing. Images of Nick Cage dressed in a bear suit punching assorted women square in the face (in the Wicker Man remake of 2006) come to mind very quickly. Whilst that ludicrously awful movie is actually something which gives me enormous amounts of pleasure to see (it even makes me chuckle inwardly to just think of it) it isn't exactly a good thing of itself.
This movie isn't a remake or exactly a sequel but seems to be somewhere between a companion piece and a re-imagining. The blurb above mentions 'a story in the style of the 1973 landmark fantasy' which doesn't sound enormously encouraging. It kind of brings to mind those trash horror novels which would be about giant crabs or snails eating people or something and printed across the cover in big letters would be something along the lines of 'in the style of James Herbert's The Rats' or slightly lower down the food chain, 'in the tradition of Shaun Hutson's SLUGS'.
That said, the teaser-trailer (below) manages to create a pretty solid and intimidatingly eerie atmosphere in very little time and with very little actual footage so maybe this will blow all reservations out of the water.
As usual, I'm hoping that it does.
This movie isn't a remake or exactly a sequel but seems to be somewhere between a companion piece and a re-imagining. The blurb above mentions 'a story in the style of the 1973 landmark fantasy' which doesn't sound enormously encouraging. It kind of brings to mind those trash horror novels which would be about giant crabs or snails eating people or something and printed across the cover in big letters would be something along the lines of 'in the style of James Herbert's The Rats' or slightly lower down the food chain, 'in the tradition of Shaun Hutson's SLUGS'.
That said, the teaser-trailer (below) manages to create a pretty solid and intimidatingly eerie atmosphere in very little time and with very little actual footage so maybe this will blow all reservations out of the water.
As usual, I'm hoping that it does.
Festival & day passes go on sale from 2nd July. Tickets for Individual films on sale from 1st August.
http://thewickertreemovie.com/webroot/v2/wp-content/themes/sandbox/trailer.php
ReplyDeleteFull trailer...Looks better than I thought. That said, the other 88 minutes could be awful.
That does look pretty good actually (and I'm not just saying that 'cause of the boobs).
ReplyDelete