Edward Woodward plays Sergeant Neil Howie, a police officer, sent to a remote west coast Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a 12 year old girl, Rowan Morrison. He arrives to find hostility to his Christian values, and, strangely, ya har har harrrr, a mother who doesn't seem to have noticed her daughter's disappearance...

The island is run by Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) a man who likes to cavort, sing, dance and wear kilts (never fear kids, his willy is safely tucked in at all times). And then the locals all start dressing up in animal face masks to eerie effect...

"I am so angry that I could spit! There is no blummin way that is Britt Eckland's botty dancing - oh! so nakedly! And then we see her apparently banging on the walls! That's a big bottomed woman with a blond wig stuck on her head! How dare they! Those definitely are Britt's boobies, however. Phew! A joy from start to finish, with a moment of botty based mediocrity in the middle."

"That wasn't Eckland's voice either, they dubbed her."

"Why oh why oh why did they put that blond wig on the woman dancing in Britt Eckland's bedroom? What is the subtext here? Film students please e-mail me ..."

"One of those rare folk music movies. It makes you want to put a hand to the ear and grow a beard to soup-mopping length. Great tits throughout, however, nicely done, pert, even."

"Bravisimo! A deeply symbolic movie with the authority figure, the policeman/Church, being thwarted by locals burning the old fool to a cinder in the Wicker Man kindling of non conformity."

"Wicky wicky wicky!"

We discover that the missing girl, Rowan Morrison, was hidden by the locals to get the policeman to the island...

So, our Christian fundamentalist policeman hero is pretty much trapped.

He is taken and put in a large wicker man (like one of the giants on Easter Island but with a Scottish chin, and made out of wicker) which is then set alight as a sacrifice to the Gods (of apples?) in a brilliantly (luckily?) filmed sunset ending.

On its release they attempted to bury this movie and, in fact, the directors cut, which we saw, was made out of the only (?) full version of the movie which had, by chance, not been destroyed by an American distributor.

The movie seems to have acquired that weird kind of cult attention that some originally-believed-to-be-awful movies get. As if an awful movie can mature with age. Today, perhaps, the attraction of it is that it is filled to the rafters with simple 1970's folk who sing a lot, a sadly unsophisticated bunch who wouldn't know an internet if it bit them on the nose. Even so, there are some scary bits. And more than a few tits in compensation.

Quaint is really the word I am searching for here. The movie seems to have been made as a musical and then they forgot about the music later on. It is eerie however. The ending, too, is particularly original, but I was more scared by the locals in animal masks...

It was originally released as a B movie at a time when cinema goers got two movies, the one they went to see and a crap one. This, in its cut to 87 minute length, was the crap one. Moving on...

Pork chop, boiled potatoes and beans all straight from a tin.

In the position of summer fruits in a bowl singing Koombaya...

A dead hare.

Only if there is an award for singing as if you are in a children's TV show in an adult movie. The song sung around the May Pole, performed by the teacher to his students, is a particular case in point.

The police officer is a little to over-Christian, never a good idea in a pagan community.

An awful (cult) movie with pleasing heterosexual undertones, and some really good bits that stick in your mind (such as eerie animal face masks, Christopher Lee dancing in a dress, the Wicker Man at the end, and a policeman flying to the island in his own police-plane! (how cool is that?))

Recently (October 2003) voted into the top 20 scariest moments in a British survey (Channel 4).

The directors cut is a bit of a mish mash with yellowed original footage cut into the print. And, of course, there's the Britt Eckland botty controversy: Yes, they really did film an extra from the back (Eckland moans to this day that it looks nothing like her) - Eckland only did the front bits... and, yes, they dubbed her voice too.

The music rarely improves upon what we would consider to be children's TV style today.