Review: The Wicker Man (2006) Unrated Version

I was going to write a review of a Nicolas Cage movie yesterday in honor of his birthday, but unfortunately I was too goddamn lazy. Last night, however, I awoke from troubled dreams to find the pale, gaunt ghost of Nicolas Cage (he's dead, right?) screaming at the foot of my bed, his face contorted into a chilling mixture of agony and rage.

He was only there for a couple seconds, and right after that I fell back asleep (it's possible I never woke up, and that this was actually a potent nightmare brought on by my trying the new Domino's Pizza recipe), but when I finally got up this morning I was stuck in the vice-like grip of fear. If I was ever to ease my guilty conscience, I had no choice but to review Nicolas Cage's magnum opus, The Wicker Man.

The Wicker Man, like almost every movie Nicolas Cage makes these days, concerns Nicolas Cage running around a lot and making funny faces (what some people refer to as "acting"). The actual plot isn't important, but I'll summarize it for you anyway. Cage plays ambiguously insane cop, Edward Malus, who may or may not have witnessed a woman and a really bitchy little girl being annihilated in a car wreck. While recovering from this "tragedy", Edward receives a letter from his fiancee who left him at the altar, Willow Woodward (how clever! A reference to the star of the original Wicker Man, Edward Woodward!). The letter asks for his help in finding her daughter, Rowan, who vanished without a trace in their island home of Summersisle. Though this bitch totally left him at the altar and he can't find out anything about the island besides the fact that it exports honey, he accepts the case and sets out for the mysterious Summersisle!

"The plot thickens!"

So he goes to this obscure island and finds it to be populated almost entirely by snooty bitches with shit-eating grins, and lots and lots of bees. Did I mention Nicolas Cage is allergic to bees in this movie?

This won't end well.

Even worse, no one is particularly eager to help him except for his ex, Willow, and most of them deny that Rowan even exists! But that doesn't stop Nicolas Cage from getting into all sort of crazy shenanigans. All the violence towards women he can muster, however, might not be enough to save him when THE WICKER MAN returns.

Whenever I bring up Nicolas Cage in daily conversation (and believe me, if you talk to me you're going to be hearing a lot about Nicolas Cage) people, usually women, tend to immediately roll their eyes and ask why I'm so fixated on such a terrible actor. After I punch them in the face, usually while wearing a bear suit (I never leave home without one), I calmly explain what I am about to tell you now. Nic Cage for me represents the modern "cult" actor, a guy who has the courage to do incredibly demeaning things solely for the sake of entertaining his audience, who will accept any script that falls on his lap just because he loves working (or, you know, needs the money to pay off his taxes). Whereas a guy like Daniel Day-Lewis would never accept a script as stupid as The Wicker Man, Nicolas Cage not only accepts it but throws himself into the role with such gusto that one might think he forgot he was making it in the first place. In other words, this is a guy who actually gives a shit, who will give his all to any job that comes his way, and the results are always hilarious! I will admit, it took me a while to warm up to the man. After all, for every Bad Lieutenant you have a National Treasure. But as the song goes, "you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life". No matter how shitty National Treasure is, after all, it doesn't make The Wicker Man any less hilarious.

And holy shit is it hilarious! In this movie you get to see all of the following: Nicolas Cage punching a woman, Nicolas drop kicking a woman, and Nicolas Cage punching a woman while wearing a bear suit. "But Camden," you'll say, "I already saw those hilarious scenes on YouTube, so why should I watch the rest of the movie?" Because it's Nicolas Cage, I say! He delivers the most ridiculous lines of dialogue with the utmost conviction, as if he actually believed he was working with a script that hadn't been used to wipe someone's ass. It is true that the violence on women is the funniest aspect of the film, but their is definitely enough madness to entertain you for 102 minutes. Editor's note: Not to mention, Cage dancing in the bear suit isn't part of the YouTube cocktail

Let's face it: Hollywood is already producing lots and lots of crap, but not much of it is as earnest as The Wicker Man. This film has an Oscar winning actor working with an acclaimed writer/director who probably thought they were going to revolutionize the modern horror film and failed horribly. That, my friends, is what makes a cult movie. It is not a deliberately cheesy throwback* to classic exploitation flicks, but something that is meant to be good and fails with hilarious results. This accurately describes most of Nicolas Cage's work these days. The thing is, I do not look down on Nicolas Cage for this like most people do. Actually I respect him. Sure, he could make shitty movies and just phone it in like Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, but he gives each role his all. Let's face it, it's much harder to give a shit about what you're watching when the actors don't.

As you might expect from an award-winning director, the film isn't actually that badly directed. Neil LaBute has a good eye for composition, and avoids the shaky cam and short average shot lengths that plague his many contemporaries who cut their teeth directing music videos. The problem is that the guy just doesn't understand horror, thus makes the same mistakes that most modern horror films make (such as the overuse of scare chords and jump scares). He tries for the slow burn approach but he never builds that intense feeling of dread that, say, David Lynch** is so great at. I think he probably doesn't care for the genre too much, as it's obvious he was more interested in examining the matriarchal society of Summersisle. Perhaps he intended this to scare his male demographic, or perhaps to force them to confront their own inherent misogyny, but I think his credibility flew out the window as soon as Nicolas Cage put on a bear suit.

Neil LaBute explains: "The bear suit is representative of the oppressive hand of patriarchy and...ah fuck it, I just thought it'd be hilarious to put Nicolas Cage in a bear suit."

For a man who doesn't understand horror, he seems to have done his homework. There were at least two moments that reminded me a whole lot of Dario Argento's great horror film Inferno. One features Edward exploring a flooded crypt (much like the celebrated scene from Inferno where Irene Miracle swims through a flooded ballroom). Okay, I thought, probably just a coincidence. But then there was a scene where Edward is stung by a bunch of bees (as I said, he's allergic) and nearly dies, only to pass out and wake to find himself in the care of that lady from Six Feet Under! This reminded me of Inferno's scene where Leigh McCloskey randomly suffers a heart attack and sees the creepy people from his hotel standing over him before passing out and waking up in his room, surprised to still be alive. I'm probably grabbing at straws here, but since I'm a film nerd seeing anything similar to Italian horror films is liable to make me cream in my pants.

So okay, by most criteria this is an abominable movie. But it is also damn funny and damn entertaining, and if you can't have fun with a dumb movie (or, concurrently, a cheesy actor), well...that is unfortunate, because The Wicker Man is funnier than most straight comedies that Hollywood churns out these days.

FINAL VERDICT: ESSENTIAL VIEWING!

But be sure to watch the unrated version instead of the theatrical cut! You know that hilarious scene where Nicolas Cage gets bees poured on his face and starts screaming like a maniac? Not going to see that in the theatrical cut, folks.

*That said, I think Grindhouse is awesome. I'm just saying that it isn't a real cult movie.

**Incidentally, this film features a score by Lynch's regular collaborator Angelo Badalamenti. He must have been the only one aware of how stupid their movie was, because his score pretty much defines "phoned in".