[Quick Summary: After receiving an anonymous letter about the disappearance of a missing child, a by-the-book policeman arrives on a remote island to investigate.]
Q: What makes this odd film stand out? Why is there a cult like fan following?
A: It's a proper horror film, i.e., properly unsettling and weird.
Q: Horror films explore what we fear. What is the fear here?
A: Something is very wrong when no one (except for the protagonist) is concerned about a missing child on a remote island.
Q: How did the writer make such a weird story, well, weird?
A: One of the keys was what one critic called, "recognizably strange" things.
The script starts off with the typical straight-laced policeman. I recognize this character and how he'd respond in situations. I identify with his reasoning.
Then odd "recognizably strange" things start to happen to him, yet no one (but him) is alarmed. They're just 15% or so off of normal. Just enough to dismiss him....
For example, in the scene below:
- Mrs. Morrison has just denied to Sgt. Howie that her older daughter is missing.
- She exits, leaving Howie with the her younger daughter Myrtle.
- We are unsettled by Mrs. Morrison's matter of fact reaction --> now add Myrtle's.
- Note how no one is trying very hard to convince Howie. In fact, the indifference is frightening and infuriating to a by-the-book cop.
INT. PARLOUR OF SWEET SHOP - DAY
...We now see that the child is doing a drawing of a hare with huge ears and whiskers which she is copying from a copper mould that has plainly been used to make the chocolate hares. She looks up and hands Howie a dropping paint brush.
MYRTLE: Here you are. You can fillin the ears in grey.
Neat, clean Sergeant Howie is horrified to find his hand suddenly sticky with paint, and quickly takes the paint rag to clean himself. Carefully he selects a clean brush and starts on the ears.
HOWIE: Myrtle, do you know Rowan?
MYRTLE: Of course.
Howie is startled by the answer.
HOWIE: You do?
MYRTLE: Course I do, silly.
HOWIE: Where is she now?
MYRTLE: In the fields. She runs and plays all day.
HOWIE: Will she be back for tea?
HOWIE: Why not? Doesn't she like it?
She stops laughing abruptly and stares at him contemptuously.
MYRTLE: Hares don't have tea, silly.
HOWIE: Hares!
MYRTLE: She's a hare. Rowan's a hare. She has a lovely time.
Howie sits thunderstruck. The door to the shop opens and Mrs. Morrison re-appears....
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: I liked how the script lulled me in with recognizable behavior --> becomes "recognizably strange" --> bizarre frightening behavior.
This gradual slide was very believable!
The Wicker Man (1973)
by Anthony Shaffer
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