Amazon.co.uk Review
It must be stressed that despite the fact that it was produced in 1973 and stars both Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland, The Wicker Man is not a Hammer Horror film. There is no blood, very little gore and the titular Wicker Man is not a monster made out of sticks that runs around killing people by weaving them into raffia work. Edward Woodward plays Sergeant Howie, a virginal, Christian policeman sent from the Scottish mainland to investigate the disappearance of young girl on the remote island of Summer Isle. The intelligent script by Anthony Schaffer, who also wrote the detective mystery Sleuth (a film with which The Wicker Man shares many traits), derives its horror from the increasing isolation, confusion and humiliation experienced by the naïve Howie as he encounters the island community’s hostility and sexual pagan rituals, manifested most immediately in the enthusiastic advances of local landlord’s daughter Willow (Britt Ekland). Howie’s intriguing search, made all the more authentic by the film’s atmospheric locations and folkish soundtrack, gradually takes us deeper and deeper into the bizarre pagan community living under the guidance of the charming Laird of Summer Isle (Lee, minus fangs) as the film builds to a terrifying climax with a twist to rival that of The Sixth Sense or Fight Club. –Paul Philpott

The Wicker Man

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Amazon.co.uk Review
The comedic genius of This Is Spinal Tap is confirmed by the fact that a majority of studio executives were utterly clueless about its brilliance. As a first-time director and cowriter, Rob Reiner must have felt simultaneously frustrated and elated, knowing that the obtuseness of movie executives was a clue to his debut project’s potential greatness. Now, of course, the clarity of hindsight and the rarity of superior satire have turned This Is Spinal Tap into one of the funniest documentary spoofs of all time. Reiner and the members of “Tap” (Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer) couldn’t have picked a better target for their satire, because heavy metal music in the early 1980s was already a borderline case of self-parody. From the bizarre, premature deaths of the band’s drummers to the backstage squabbles over sexist cover art and meddling groupies, this movie scores about a hundred comedic bull’s-eyes for lampooning every possible aspect of rock pomposity in the age of Kiss. It’s a virtual bible of rock & roll irreverence, so accurate in its observations that it’s become a tour-bus classic for real bands around the world. On the one-to-ten scale of satirical inspiration, This Is Spinal Tap is like the modified amplifiers that Christopher Guest so hilariously demonstrates: this one goes to 11. –Jeff Shannon

This Is Spinal Tap

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