wicker man

So many modern horror ideas can be traced back in some way to Lovecraft's work, though you have to wonder...were these just fiction? Or did this man really discover this stuff?

Actually in Dagon, the pagan worship isn't introduced by a stranger but a local fishing boat Captain, like old man Marsh brought it to Innsmouth in the original short novel "The Shadow over Innsmouth" by H. P. Lovecraft.
If you haven't allready I highly recommend you read it.

Interesting points. I assume that you are referring to the original Wicker Man (I haven't seen the new one). Point 4 could be made about any movie, story, situation, to some extent. Something always has to be introduced to some community at some point with a decent bit of incentive for it to grab hold.

What I would argue as far as point 2 is concerned is that the residents of Boca Del Mar were more than just "weird and creepy," although that's bad enough. In The Wicker Man, we're dealing with human beings who happen to worship in a different way than "Christians." I don't personally consider that weird and creepy, in and of itself. (Human sacrifice is another story!) In the Dagon village, they aren't even human, but at best quasi-human. They are openly hostile from the get-go, whereas the Wicker villagers at least offer hospitality initially (even though it was for their ultimate ulterior ends).

Ah yes! Good parallels - I hadn't thought of that, when watching!

You can ALSO add to your list



5. Not unlike Edward Woodward's character in the Wicker Man, Paul, when Ezeqiuel was being 'skinned' and Barbara being sacrificed both reciting Christian verse/prayer to steel themselves for their fate (Though he was more doing it for Ezequiel's fate) and Barbara damning the Dagon worshippers and Priestess 'to eternal damnation in Hell'.

In Wicker man, Woodward's character attempts to 'save' the community from themselves I guess, evoking his 'Christian faith', brave in the face of the evil that thrusts him to his peril. All in vain, as the ears were so very deaf - You even got the sense they had 'heard it all before'.As in, he was hardly the first of 'his kind' to face 'this fate' on the island, indeed, that's why Woodwood's character is there, investigating a 'missing person', if I remember correctly?!

But both cases, their attempts are doomed from the start and their fates were set, long before, once they set foot in that strange, isolated, 'other world'.

There's probably a better, more concise way, to describe it, but those who've see Wicker Man too, will know what I mean. Infact that is what makes both even more scary.

When Paul does in this movie, you see, or the idea is, that this once proudly logical, rational man, who's built his success on these features, has found himself in such despair, flung far from his life before, that he falls back to a religion he obviously once knew, in what he thought would be his last moments. I guess it's a device that makes the characters in both movies a bit more sympathetic, but also seemingly braver or even defiant actually, not giving in, even at the 'very end'.



"If anyone wants me I'll be in my room" - Lisa Simpson

OH, NO! NOT THE FISH! NOT THE FISH! AAAAAHHHHH! OH, THEY'RE IN MY EYES! MY EYES! AAAAHHHHH! AAAAAGGHHH!