Editorials
May Day – Folk Horror Classic ‘The Wicker Man’ Turns 50
Classic folk horror movie The Wicker Man turns fifty later this year, but today, May 1, 2023, makes for the perfect time to celebrate its momentous anniversary.
The entire premise centers around May Day festivities, after all, building its horror around the themes of rebirth, fertility, and the driving desire for an isolated community to thrive with a fruitful harvest. What’s now considered a foundational pillar of folk horror wasn’t always the case. The Wicker Man eschewed conventional horror tactics that puzzled upon initial release, mining its ultimate terror from one unforgettable ending.
The opening text attempts to establish authenticity with a producer’s thanks to Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) and his people for cooperating with the film’s production and providing insight into their religion and culture. It then cuts to a seaplane arriving at the remote Summerisle setting over the opening credits, introducing Police Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward). Howie receives an anonymous letter about a missing girl, Rowan Morrison, on Summerisle, and the well-intentioned Sergeant takes it upon himself to investigate. Lucky for him, the remote island residents welcome him warmly and offer unfettered access to their community during his stay. But the devout Christian finds himself unsettled by the increasingly vague answers to his questions and even more unnerved by their Pagan practices.
Whether Rowan exists or not will become the least of Howie’s problems.
Director Robin Hardy and screenwriter Anthony Shaffer (Frenzy), inspired by David Pinner’s 1967 novel Ritual, present an atypical aesthetic for a horror movie. Summerisle earns its moniker thanks to its vibrant sunny locale and spring festivities. Its people are warm, cheery, and prone to breaking out into song and dance. The township of Summerisle favors nature above all else; it’s reflected everywhere. Characters are named after flowers, trees, and plants. Howie stays at the Green Man Inn, a revealing title that the conservative police sergeant doesn’t connect.
Of course, the more Howie explores Summerisle in search of Rowan, the more alarmed he grows. As clues mount for his quest, like a missing photo of the most recent May Queen, so do the signs that Summerisle’s customs embrace Paganism. Howie’s horrified to come upon a group of copulating villagers on his evening stroll and even more perturbed to find the classrooms teaching children of phallic symbolism in May Day festivities. Howie finds himself an island within the island, an unrepentant Christian surrounded by unapologetic Pagans, despite how civilized and rational they seem. It affirms his righteous determination to find Rowan and get out of there as he becomes more confident that she’s been sacrificed.
Hardy presents Summerisle as is, without judgement; their way of life is only a problem for Howie in more ways than one. The unwitting frog doesn’t realize he’s dropped into a warm pot until it reaches a rolling boil that he’s unable to flee. As the film barrels towards its shocking conclusion, Hardy and Shaffer spell out exactly where Howie’s journey ends with a library scene that sees its oblivious protagonist read aloud Summerisle’s May Day ceremonies and their gods’ requirements for a bountiful harvest; a must for the village’s continued existence. Exuberance masks Summerisle’s desperation, and the final act unmasks it with the haunting reveal that it was Howie all along, not Rowan, who was designated the sacrifice.
The May Day ritual ensues, with the foretold parade and a grim beheading that culminates with Howie offered up in a burning effigy, the eponymous Wicker Man. His prayers and cries for aid in the name of his faith go unanswered as the flames devour the structure.
The Wicker Man, released initially in December 1973, breaks all the usual horror rules. Save for a clashing of religions and a central mystery, nothing about Hardy’s film signals horror for most of its brief runtime. The eccentricities of Summerisle’s people and traditions meant it didn’t set the box office ablaze, likely even more so with a dour ending for its main character. That doesn’t even touch upon the multiple cuts and restorations unearthed throughout the decades.
Christopher Lee, who delivered an infectious and compelling performance as the commanding Lord Summerisle, was so proud of this film that he funded his own publicity tour to promote it. Lee is often credited for driving interest in The Wicker Man, a move that left him out of pocket. Nevertheless, the late horror legend was absolutely spot on about the film’s merit.
Reappraisal came for The Wicker Man, now considered among the seminal, formative folk horror trifecta. The Wicker Man, along with 1968’s Witchfinder General and 1971’s The Blood on Satan’s Claw, emerged as the pinnacle of the often nebulously defined horror subgenre with a lasting impact on pop culture.
While the movie ends without revealing whether Summerisle’s sacrifice yielded their desired hopes of a bountiful harvest, The Wicker Man did usher forth a classic horror movie whose legacy only seems to grow more potent with age.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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