I’ve loved the film ever since accidentally catching it as a supporting feature to Don’t Look Now in 1973. I know! What a double-bill! In more recent times we’ve even had fun driving around Dumfries & Galloway, visiting the locations used in the film - of which the old graveyard at Anwoth has to be the best, still eerily atmospheric.
Great article - and I will be rewatching it as a matter of course. I had to laugh out loud at your imagined discussion with your classmates. I went through a listening-only-to-JS Bach phase when I was 14 - and there was no way on Earth I would've mentioned that at school!
Thanks Bryan. Haha. That might have gone down quite... interestingly at Kimberley Comprehensive School circa 1989. It was bad enough when I announced in German class that I had spent the weekend Iistening to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska album.
Thank you for writing this Tom. I remember this film, and others like it, that capture the mystical essence of the countryside that many of us experience a cellular response to. I find it interesting that these experiences represent who we are at our very core. These are often unconscious or forgotten, deeply, deeply buried memories but they are triggered when we see a film, read a book, take a walk, whatever it is suddenly our unconscious body responds and that deep recognition leaps out to capture us again. I think this is why I continue to subscribe. You know this. I experience this often through your writing.
I was stunned to see that your article about The Wicker Man resulted in 40 ‘unsubscribes’ to your Substack. I am also a big fan of the original film though at every viewing it still scares the hell out of me.
Then on reflection, maybe I should not have been so surprised. When I self published ‘Eloquently Barking’ last year, in the synopsis I mentioned ‘undergraduate black magic’ – a bizarre true story of coming home one evening at university to discover one of my roommates involved in a satanic rite dedicating himself to the devil!
I was advised me to remove any reference to satanism or black magic as it would immediately discourage many people from reading the book.
PS Back in the mid 80s I worked with Anthony Shaffer on a corporate film not knowing he had written The Wicker Man. He was an amicable professional which in hindsight seemed incongruous with his ‘folk horror’masterpiece!
How fabulous that you met Schaffer, Rowland. He’s such an unsung hero and I can’t help thinking that much of the film’s brilliance is down to his skill with words. I am always very aware of - and a little fascinated by - how the unsubscribes work (100+ now, in the case of this piece). The vast majority occur within the 20 minutes after a piece is posted (and the vast majority of those within the first five minutes), which, in the case of an essay as long as this, suggest that most of those people aren’t even skimreading it, they’re just seeing a headline or a picture or a load of words blur together in front of their eyes, making an assumption and saying “Nope, not for me - fuck off, Tom.” I am at the point now where I write comfortably embracing the process of alienating these people, since they are not my audience - they’re probably just people who have subscribed to my newsletter by mistake, in the vague hope that I’ll not be me (something that I find decreasingly possible, as I get older). It is doubtful any of them would enjoy my books and I’m cool with that, as plenty of people do. Of course, these kind of knee-jerk reactions might be a bit more extreme and free-flowing when you call a piece ‘Protected By The Ejaculation Of Serpents’ and use the opening photo that I have used here (which, if I’d decided to pre-arm and defend my writing from assumption, I’d probably not have used). And I imagine people having a problem with that phrase you mention is another version of this. If we all start worrying too much about this stuff, and self-censoring as a result of it, it means writing becomes less honest and discussion becomes less nuanced and real and helpful. I made a decision a while ago that I’m writing to communicate and learn rather than to live up safely to some surface potential version of myself that the internet and scrollhound culture creates. But it’s a shame, also, that the world is like this because maybe just a couple of people who say “eugh” and run away with flapping arms in a New York minute when they see the phrase “protected by the ejaculation of serpents” or “undergraduate black magic” might in fact, after taking the time to investigate, surprise themselves by enjoying The Wicker Man (non-robotic goat version) or a book which has the phrase “undergraduate black magic” in the title.
I love this Tom. I hate to see it when people get so upset about a loss of subscribers. I have a very dear friend who is just getting started on substack and because she's trying to grow her audience, she is taking it very personally that she loses subscribers after she posts something. I keep encouraging her, telling her that is just the process, winnowing out the people who aren't really your target audience anyway. But I know it's disheartening. Sometimes this makes me really glad for my ADHD because I'm so scattered I can barely remember what my last sub count was and I'm too lazy to go digging through the state deeply to figure it out so it just works out. 😄
Thanks for this, Tom. I’m experiencing the same sort of losses (and yes, almost always within 5-20 minutes of posting). I’m leaning into this now because of bluePNWcats and now, you.
Absolutely. I am very aware that this is also what is often happening. People don’t see the bit where they need to click “no thanks” to being autosubscribed to a page’s recommendations. This led to one extremely angry missive from someone who thought I had “tricked” him into subscribing to me using some special Devonshire voodoo.
I am quite disturbed to realise you would appear to be right that it is categorised, in so much as it can be, as a kind of horror. I always found it an more of a dramatic tale of judgemental intruders seen off… I guess the school in the film reminding me so much of my small rural primary school (yes, I sang summer is a cummin in aged 8) must have shaped its reception quite strongly. 😂
Having grown up in the 1970’s watching Children of the stones, the Wicker Man was a welcome revival of horror folklore goodness when I saw it on a late night BBC 2 showing in the 80’s. Seems to get better with age, like a fine wine and more relevant in our era of climate change.
So stopped straightaway at the beginning of this post and watched The Wicker Man and all I can say right now is WOW where has this film been all my life?
Ah yes the wicker man great film and American werewolf in London is definitely one of my favourites both watched many times, I'm not a big horror fan otherwise despite having friends and family who adore all the blood and gore and are goths to the core (accidental rhyming there 😄). I find some of the true life films far more horrific and frightening. I am also a May child born 20th May and a pagan.
Saw this back in the '90's, and loved it of course. I didn't know it was classified as a horror film., a genre I never watch. The end is horrifying though and that's a different matter entirely.
I love to laugh a the "Brrrrroad beans, in their natural state, are not usually terquazzzz" etc. but the screaming at the end puts the shits up me every time. If you ever see a "Sing-a-long Wickerman" event near you, do go it is very entertaining.
Damn shame some halfwits destroyed the mans legs. Still there a few years back...
Thanks Tom. Especially that you just casually drop in the chatting to the director moment. Shame that sort of job is only open to the terminally wealthy now.
The most terrifying film I’ve ever seen. I once had a boyfriend whose band used play a kind of jazz arrangement of the Landlord’s Daughter and that was weird
I’ve loved the film ever since accidentally catching it as a supporting feature to Don’t Look Now in 1973. I know! What a double-bill! In more recent times we’ve even had fun driving around Dumfries & Galloway, visiting the locations used in the film - of which the old graveyard at Anwoth has to be the best, still eerily atmospheric.
I wish I could write even ten per cent as well as you Tom, because then I might be able to do justice to saying how much I enjoyed this piece.
Thanks Jane!
Great article - and I will be rewatching it as a matter of course. I had to laugh out loud at your imagined discussion with your classmates. I went through a listening-only-to-JS Bach phase when I was 14 - and there was no way on Earth I would've mentioned that at school!
Thanks Bryan. Haha. That might have gone down quite... interestingly at Kimberley Comprehensive School circa 1989. It was bad enough when I announced in German class that I had spent the weekend Iistening to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska album.
Thank you for writing this Tom. I remember this film, and others like it, that capture the mystical essence of the countryside that many of us experience a cellular response to. I find it interesting that these experiences represent who we are at our very core. These are often unconscious or forgotten, deeply, deeply buried memories but they are triggered when we see a film, read a book, take a walk, whatever it is suddenly our unconscious body responds and that deep recognition leaps out to capture us again. I think this is why I continue to subscribe. You know this. I experience this often through your writing.
# Blank Magic?
I was stunned to see that your article about The Wicker Man resulted in 40 ‘unsubscribes’ to your Substack. I am also a big fan of the original film though at every viewing it still scares the hell out of me.
Then on reflection, maybe I should not have been so surprised. When I self published ‘Eloquently Barking’ last year, in the synopsis I mentioned ‘undergraduate black magic’ – a bizarre true story of coming home one evening at university to discover one of my roommates involved in a satanic rite dedicating himself to the devil!
I was advised me to remove any reference to satanism or black magic as it would immediately discourage many people from reading the book.
PS Back in the mid 80s I worked with Anthony Shaffer on a corporate film not knowing he had written The Wicker Man. He was an amicable professional which in hindsight seemed incongruous with his ‘folk horror’masterpiece!
How fabulous that you met Schaffer, Rowland. He’s such an unsung hero and I can’t help thinking that much of the film’s brilliance is down to his skill with words. I am always very aware of - and a little fascinated by - how the unsubscribes work (100+ now, in the case of this piece). The vast majority occur within the 20 minutes after a piece is posted (and the vast majority of those within the first five minutes), which, in the case of an essay as long as this, suggest that most of those people aren’t even skimreading it, they’re just seeing a headline or a picture or a load of words blur together in front of their eyes, making an assumption and saying “Nope, not for me - fuck off, Tom.” I am at the point now where I write comfortably embracing the process of alienating these people, since they are not my audience - they’re probably just people who have subscribed to my newsletter by mistake, in the vague hope that I’ll not be me (something that I find decreasingly possible, as I get older). It is doubtful any of them would enjoy my books and I’m cool with that, as plenty of people do. Of course, these kind of knee-jerk reactions might be a bit more extreme and free-flowing when you call a piece ‘Protected By The Ejaculation Of Serpents’ and use the opening photo that I have used here (which, if I’d decided to pre-arm and defend my writing from assumption, I’d probably not have used). And I imagine people having a problem with that phrase you mention is another version of this. If we all start worrying too much about this stuff, and self-censoring as a result of it, it means writing becomes less honest and discussion becomes less nuanced and real and helpful. I made a decision a while ago that I’m writing to communicate and learn rather than to live up safely to some surface potential version of myself that the internet and scrollhound culture creates. But it’s a shame, also, that the world is like this because maybe just a couple of people who say “eugh” and run away with flapping arms in a New York minute when they see the phrase “protected by the ejaculation of serpents” or “undergraduate black magic” might in fact, after taking the time to investigate, surprise themselves by enjoying The Wicker Man (non-robotic goat version) or a book which has the phrase “undergraduate black magic” in the title.
I love this Tom. I hate to see it when people get so upset about a loss of subscribers. I have a very dear friend who is just getting started on substack and because she's trying to grow her audience, she is taking it very personally that she loses subscribers after she posts something. I keep encouraging her, telling her that is just the process, winnowing out the people who aren't really your target audience anyway. But I know it's disheartening. Sometimes this makes me really glad for my ADHD because I'm so scattered I can barely remember what my last sub count was and I'm too lazy to go digging through the state deeply to figure it out so it just works out. 😄
Thanks for this, Tom. I’m experiencing the same sort of losses (and yes, almost always within 5-20 minutes of posting). I’m leaning into this now because of bluePNWcats and now, you.
Re people who have subscribed to my newsletter by mistake,
There is a mechanism/algorthythm on Substack whereby when you subscribe to one Substack - you also get subscribed to a couple of others
Absolutely. I am very aware that this is also what is often happening. People don’t see the bit where they need to click “no thanks” to being autosubscribed to a page’s recommendations. This led to one extremely angry missive from someone who thought I had “tricked” him into subscribing to me using some special Devonshire voodoo.
I can just visualise you in a Merlinesque cloak incanting wildly with Denise accompanying you on her PANDAmonium!
I am quite disturbed to realise you would appear to be right that it is categorised, in so much as it can be, as a kind of horror. I always found it an more of a dramatic tale of judgemental intruders seen off… I guess the school in the film reminding me so much of my small rural primary school (yes, I sang summer is a cummin in aged 8) must have shaped its reception quite strongly. 😂
Having grown up in the 1970’s watching Children of the stones, the Wicker Man was a welcome revival of horror folklore goodness when I saw it on a late night BBC 2 showing in the 80’s. Seems to get better with age, like a fine wine and more relevant in our era of climate change.
So stopped straightaway at the beginning of this post and watched The Wicker Man and all I can say right now is WOW where has this film been all my life?
I live under a rock. I mean, it's a really great rock, but still, some things shouldn't be missed, or should I say, sacrificed?
Stephanie I too have only just recently watched it. The 1973 version of course. Very disturbing but so good.
I feel like I have to watch it again. I think I missed a lot.
I agree as I too think I missed a lot.
I did the same thing. It’s been on my list for a long time and this was just the push I needed.
My favourite line is “ I trust that the sight of the young people refreshes you” . So brilliant and camp
I didn't know about the bum double! You've ruined my day.
Great piece! 🖤
Ah yes the wicker man great film and American werewolf in London is definitely one of my favourites both watched many times, I'm not a big horror fan otherwise despite having friends and family who adore all the blood and gore and are goths to the core (accidental rhyming there 😄). I find some of the true life films far more horrific and frightening. I am also a May child born 20th May and a pagan.
Saw this back in the '90's, and loved it of course. I didn't know it was classified as a horror film., a genre I never watch. The end is horrifying though and that's a different matter entirely.
As I’ve never seen the movie, I guess I need to watch it now!
I love to laugh a the "Brrrrroad beans, in their natural state, are not usually terquazzzz" etc. but the screaming at the end puts the shits up me every time. If you ever see a "Sing-a-long Wickerman" event near you, do go it is very entertaining.
Sumer is icumen in.
Damn shame some halfwits destroyed the mans legs. Still there a few years back...
Thanks Tom. Especially that you just casually drop in the chatting to the director moment. Shame that sort of job is only open to the terminally wealthy now.
The most terrifying film I’ve ever seen. I once had a boyfriend whose band used play a kind of jazz arrangement of the Landlord’s Daughter and that was weird
On a not totally dissimilar note, Tunng’s version of ‘Maypole Song’ is great.