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Wicker Man, The
Warner Bros. Pictures


2.9

based on 19 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 58 votes
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Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for disturbing images and violence, language and thematic issues

Starring Nicolas Cage, Ellen Burstyn, Kate Beahan, Frances Conroy, Molly Parker, Leelee Sobieski, Diane Delano, and Michael Wiseman

In Neil LaBute's remake of the 1973 horror classic, Nicolas Cage stars as a sheriff investigating a young girl's disappearance from an isolated, mysterious island.

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Horror \| Mystery \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Neil LaBute Anthony Shaffer (1973 screenplay)
DIRECTED BY:	Neil LaBute
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 19, 2006 Theatrical: September 1, 2006
RUNNING TIME:	97 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Germany / USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

New York Post Kyle Smith

Profoundly disturbing, blood-chilling suspenser.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Despite its logy, red-herring structure, the film has enough enigma and weirdness that it gradually stirs to life.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

As it is, LaBute has cleverly repurposed his creepy source material. This Wicker Man, which wasn't screened for critics, is a nutty atonement for the gender assaults of his filmmaking and playwriting past, including "In the Company of Men," "Your Friends & Neighbors," and "The Shape of Things."

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Well intentioned, but only occasionally creepy.

Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen

In the end, LaBute's remake is an interesting idea that never transforms into a particularly satisfying movie.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

For this remake writer-director Neil LaBute has moved the action from Scotland to Washington State, added enough scares for Warner Brothers to market the movie as horror, and turned the story into an almost comically Wagnerian expression of the castration anxiety that snakes through his original screenplays.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The Wicker Man is too loony to be a drama, too earnest to be a comedy, too predictable to be a horror film.

LA Weekly Michael Atkinson

This wasn't a horror film the first time around, and LaBute makes sorry feints at effective creepiness, letting the story roam in circles just like Cage.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

In an era of careful cost accountancy and focus-group testing, it's remarkable that a movie as truly, deeply, madly foolish as The Wicker Man escaped the asylum. But we must be grateful for the endless guffaws and gasps and outright stunned silences it unleashes on lucky audiences.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

The Wicker Man isn't all that bad a movie; it's visually striking and ambitious in some ways. It just fails to bring enough to the table to fully distance itself from the original.

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

Unlikely to inspire a passionate following similar to the original, the film, which opened Friday without being screened for the press, ultimately induces more titters than dread.

Variety Joe Leydon

Any provocative questions LaBute might have wanted to raise are totally obscured as the rising tide of absurdity gradually overwhelms the entire enterprise.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

There may be a way to remake 1973's cult thriller The Wicker Man, in which a deeply Christian cop has his religious convictions shaken to the core as he investigates the disappearance of a child from within a cheerfully pagan community, but Neil LaBute didn't find it.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

As an allegory of religious conflict, the '73 film is brilliantly constructed and ends with a punctuation mark that was shocking in its day. LaBute's movie attempts to shock, as well, and does: Given the names involved and the casting of Cage, it is shockingly bad.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

LaBute has transformed the eerie, disturbing psychological thriller into an unintentional comedy. At times, The Wicker Man is hilariously bad.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Turns a cultishly creepy classic into a dull and windy farce.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

A movie like this can survive an absurd premise but not incompetent execution. And Mr. LaBute, never much of an artist with the camera, proves almost comically inept as a horror-movie technician...It's neither haunting nor amusing; just boring.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jennie Punter

The Wicker Man is one of those "what were they thinking?" movies.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Do yourself a favor: Go rent Hardy's original film, watch it, and then try and get it out of your head. You never, ever will.

The average user rating for this movie is 2.9 (out of 10) based on 58 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Hanna A-L gave it a10:
This movie was so much better than the original. Move with the times everyone, lame folk music and slow slow SLOW plots are not interesting to the modern audience. The original was alright, but the 2006 one was SO much slicker, had better symbolism and imagery. Nic Cage was amazing, and so were the rest of the cast. This is one of my favourite films. The only reason people gave it such a bagging was because they are stuck in the past and can't accept modern ideas and that movie making has changed in the past thirty years. It is definitely a 10. Well done Nic Cage.

kit gave it a10:
The funniest film you'll ever see.

A Movie Critic gave it a1:
One of the worst movies I've ever seen. Nicholas Cage has shown himself to be a good actor in the past but he has GOT to pick his movies better. Surprisingly, this isn't just something he jumped onto in order to make a quick buck, he was actually a producer for this film, and apparently was heavily involved in getting it made....wow. Just...horrible. A complete waste of time. Not scary whatsoever.

Jon W. gave it a5:
This movie is not good, although the "did-I-just-see-that?" spectacle of a bear-suited Cage punching a woman in the face makes it worth a cheap rental. Also: "NOT THE BEES!!! NO!!! and "Give me the bike!" and "HOW'D IT GET BURNED? HOWDITGETBURNEDHOWDITGETBURNED??!?! and "BITCHES!!" Actually, this might be an unsung masterpiece of comedy. So I'll compromise and give it a 5.

G H gave it a0:
A dreadful mess of a movie. Will someone please ask second rate directors to stop attempting remakes of classic movies which dont need to be remade. Please.

N D gave it a1:
Awful film - watch the original instead. Cage is a terrible actor imo! Boringgggggggggggg!!!

[Anonymous] gave it an8:
I am shocked at the hatred towards this film. I found it to be very interesting.

Wicker Man, The Warner Bros. Pictures

Wicker Man, The
Warner Bros. Pictures