A Christian country singer and her cowboy boyfriend go on an evangelizing mission to Scotland. They abstain from sex until they are married. They end up in some country small town run by a rich couple who own the local nuclear plant. The town's inhabitants are pagans who worship a variety of gods and the sun. But the rich couple sponsor concerts which gives our country couple the chance to sell their religion. And the town goes along with it.
Strangely, there are almost no kids in the town. One friendly local lady is desperately trying to get pregnant by the local cop. She also ends up seducing the cowboy.
May Day is also approaching and our singer is elected May Queen and the cowboy her Laddie. But we get hints that something isn't right in this town. For some reason that isn't clear, the singer is almost poisoned by the butler. Since that doesn't work, he ends up drugging her and preparing her body in oils for some purpose which we discover later but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. At least the surprising fate of the cowboy is explained a bit better.
The Wicker Tree oddly doesn't manage to capture the strangeness of the pagan towns people at all. And there is no sense of the dread in the least. The movie doesn't know how to generate any excitement or build- up toward the resolution. Our country couple is too goofy to be taken serious. He's the kind of cowboy who sleeps with his cowboy hat on. She doesn't contribute much to the story except for songs and innocence. And there are a lot of songs in this movie. Most are actually pleasant even though I despise anything that resembles a musical. In one of the few smart lines in the movie she asks the pagans if they don't have a song for what just happened. If you want to make a movie like this you can't just settle for lameness and mediocrity. The themes are interesting and suited for something edgier, darker. If anything it's an opportunity to make a unique stronger movie.
Strangely, there are almost no kids in the town. One friendly local lady is desperately trying to get pregnant by the local cop. She also ends up seducing the cowboy.
May Day is also approaching and our singer is elected May Queen and the cowboy her Laddie. But we get hints that something isn't right in this town. For some reason that isn't clear, the singer is almost poisoned by the butler. Since that doesn't work, he ends up drugging her and preparing her body in oils for some purpose which we discover later but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. At least the surprising fate of the cowboy is explained a bit better.
The Wicker Tree oddly doesn't manage to capture the strangeness of the pagan towns people at all. And there is no sense of the dread in the least. The movie doesn't know how to generate any excitement or build- up toward the resolution. Our country couple is too goofy to be taken serious. He's the kind of cowboy who sleeps with his cowboy hat on. She doesn't contribute much to the story except for songs and innocence. And there are a lot of songs in this movie. Most are actually pleasant even though I despise anything that resembles a musical. In one of the few smart lines in the movie she asks the pagans if they don't have a song for what just happened. If you want to make a movie like this you can't just settle for lameness and mediocrity. The themes are interesting and suited for something edgier, darker. If anything it's an opportunity to make a unique stronger movie.