THE WICKER MAN |

Production Company: Millenium Films/ Alcon Entertainment/ Saturn Films

Studio: Warner Brothers

Cast: Nicolas Cage as Edward Maulis, Ellen Burstyn as Sister Summersisle, Molly Parker, Leelee Sobieski as Honey, Kate Beahan as Willow Woodward, Paul Becker as Bee Keeper, Christa Campbell as Donna, Frances Conroy as Dr. Moss, Diane Delano as Sister Beech, Erika-Shaye Gair as Rowan, Sophie Hough as Daisy, Megan McKinnon as Past Harvest Princess, George Murphy as Head Villager, Robert Musnicki as Police captain

Crew: Neil LaBute (director and co-writer); Anthony Shaffer (co-writer); Nicolas Cage, Joanne Sellar, Avi Lerner, Randall Emmett, Norman Golightly (producers); Shawn Williamson (co-producer); Brad Van Arragon (line producer); Boaz Davidson, Danny Dimbort, George Furla, Manfred Heid, Andreas Thiesmeyer, John Thompson, Gerd Koechlin, Josef Lautenschlager, Elisa Salinas, Trevor Short (executive producers)

Synopsis:
In a remake of the 1973 British horror thriller of the same name, a sheriff (Cage) investigating the disappearance of a young girl from a small island discovers there’s a larger mystery to solve among the island’s secretive, neo-pagan community involving strange sexual rituals, a harvest festival and possibly human sacrifice.

Synopsis 2
Out patrolling a California highway, police officer Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) stops a station wagon to return a little girl’s lost doll. Moments later, a runaway truck slams into the station wagon, igniting it into a fiery wreck with the mother and child trapped inside. Edward fails to save them before the car explodes…and then spends months of his life choking down pills to get the image of their faces out of his head.

But Edward is about to get a second chance.

A desperate letter from his former girlfriend, Willow (Kate Beahan), arrives at his home with no postmark. Willow came into his life and left just as unexpectedly years before. But now, her daughter Rowan has gone missing, and Edward is the only person she trusts to help locate her. She asks him to come to her home on a private island – Summersisle – a place with its own traditions where people observe a forgotten way of life. Edward seizes the opportunity to make his life right again, and soon finds himself on a seaplane bound for the islands of the Pacific Northwest.

But nothing is what it seems on isolated Summersisle, where a culture, dominated by its matriarch Sister Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn), is bound together by arcane traditions and a pagan festival called "the Day of Death and Rebirth." The secretive people of Summersisle only ridicule his investigation, insisting that a child named Rowan never existed there… or if she ever did was no longer alive.

But what Edward doesn’t know is that Willow’s plea for help has invited more into his life than a chance for redemption. In unraveling Summersisle’s closely held secrets, Edward is drawn into a web of ancient traditions and murderous deceit, and each step he takes closer to the lost child brings him one step closer to the unspeakable. And one step closer to the Wicker Man.

Other Info:

Film Fetish trivia:
The Wicker Man is a re-make of a 1973 British horror film starring Christopher Lee.

Anthony Shaffer wrote the original story of The Wicker Man. He also wrote Sommersby, Evil Under the Sun, Murder on the Orient Express and Alfred Hitchcock’s film Frenzy.