Firstly I would like to say I am a huge fan of the original, despite thinking this movie was going to be really bad, I went ahead and watched it anyway. I was pleasantly surprised by this remake. I read so many negative reviews and it has a really bad rating here, 3.4/10 is harsh.
I'm a big Nicolas Cage fan and I think he did very well in playing the role of Edward Malus and had a lot of good moments, I was impressed by the quality of the performances all round. I thought LaBute's direction was good too and the movie had a good feeling of dread and tension that was created throughout the story, very much like the original.
I feel in a way how The Wicker Man went wrong is that it wasn't daring enough to really be different to the original, (other than the island being controlled by women) some of the scenes were basically identical, I think it would have been interesting if LaBute made it that Cage found some way of escaping at the end, or at least made his death more violent, I was even more disappointed with this when I read an interview in Total Film with LaBute where he said:
"Some torture scenes towards the end of the movie ended up just getting cut. There was a kind of purifying ritual they put Cage's character through before they take him to the wicker man. They broke his knees and they put a helmet of bee's on his head. (you see him with the helmet on in one of the trailers). He was stung, virtually to death, then brought back with an adrenaline shot - only to be hauled up by his legs in the wicker man. It was a pretty savage, wonderful section"
Again, I don't understand why this wasn't included, that extra stuff sounded cool to me, would have made the scene much more violent and better, maybe even better than the original's!
However, I enjoyed this movie overall and I still feel this was a quality remake of a horror classic, and perhaps harshly overlooked by many movie fans and critics.
I'm a big Nicolas Cage fan and I think he did very well in playing the role of Edward Malus and had a lot of good moments, I was impressed by the quality of the performances all round. I thought LaBute's direction was good too and the movie had a good feeling of dread and tension that was created throughout the story, very much like the original.
I feel in a way how The Wicker Man went wrong is that it wasn't daring enough to really be different to the original, (other than the island being controlled by women) some of the scenes were basically identical, I think it would have been interesting if LaBute made it that Cage found some way of escaping at the end, or at least made his death more violent, I was even more disappointed with this when I read an interview in Total Film with LaBute where he said:
"Some torture scenes towards the end of the movie ended up just getting cut. There was a kind of purifying ritual they put Cage's character through before they take him to the wicker man. They broke his knees and they put a helmet of bee's on his head. (you see him with the helmet on in one of the trailers). He was stung, virtually to death, then brought back with an adrenaline shot - only to be hauled up by his legs in the wicker man. It was a pretty savage, wonderful section"
Again, I don't understand why this wasn't included, that extra stuff sounded cool to me, would have made the scene much more violent and better, maybe even better than the original's!
However, I enjoyed this movie overall and I still feel this was a quality remake of a horror classic, and perhaps harshly overlooked by many movie fans and critics.