What the hell, Neil LaBute?
That was my reaction a year ago when I heard about who was going to remake The Wicker Man. It's a choice completely out of left field. LaBute -- better known as a playwright and indie director who tackles contemporary relationship conflicts and the battle of the sexes -- is certainly not in anyone's list of possible choices when it comes to a Wicker Man remake (or any horror film, really).
The result is pretty much what you'd expect: Good, long dialogue scenes -- longer than you'd typically find in a horror film -- with characters speaking short sentences and trading off one another, like in a play. Great ideas, great observations, but piss-poor scare and tension, to the point of being ridiculously corny. I laughed, many times, and so did everybody else sitting in that theater. During the supposedly tense climax, a girl behind me giggled at Nicolas Cage's hysterics and exclaimed: "It's like a comedy!"
She was right, and LaBute's comedy style is to blame. He's used to drawing laughs from realistic situations and banters. In The Wicker Man, the characters react somewhat realistically, and there's the mistake. People often use humor and do silly things when they're scared or under pressure. In horror films, sometimes you have to sacrifice that to build a choking suspense. With Nic Cage throwing smart-ass remarks and yelling profanities that we too would yell in that situation ("You bitches! You bitches!"), it's hard to find the film scary. Especially since it's Nicolas Cage. He's way too cool, and terribly miscast.
It's commendable that LaBute didn't try to employ cheap and easy jump scares like many inexperienced horror directors. A lot of the creepy imagery in the film must have read wonderfully on paper. It's not a bad script; LaBute just hadn't got the execution quite right yet. He was not ready to step out of his comfort zone, so this film feels like a confused drama with disturbing images that aren't really disturbing. Every scare scene feels very, very tacked on -- like an afterthought.
One thing that's sure to get a bunch of people riled up is The Wicker Man's treatment of women. When LaBute's play In The Company of Men (and also his own film adaptation) came out, Neil was accused of being a misogynist, when in fact he was just portraying two cruel chauvinist pig characters honestly, and intended the opposite. With The Wicker Man, he's trying to flip the idea of misogyny upside down. In the original Wicker Man, Summerisle is a Pagan island harvesting apple crops. In LaBute's vision, it's a matriarch colony whose main export is honey. Ellen Burstyn fills the Christopher Lee role as Sister Summerisle, the Queen Bee of this beehive of an island.
This film is misogynistic, and it's proud of to be. That's kind of the point. In the film's third act, Cage goes berserk and starts beating the crap out of every woman that gets in his way. In one scene, Cage karate kicks LeeLee Sobieski in the face, and it's portrayed as something worth cheering about. LaBute wants to acknowledge the duality of gender equality, especially with its portrayal on film. It's fine when we see Wonder Woman beat the snot out of male henchmen, but it's unsettling when Superman stomps on women. Why? Because females are supposedly weaker? That notion is reversed in this film's secluded matriarch world. Nic Cage is like a sexually liberated woman dropped smackdab in the middle of a Taliban regime. Women do whatever they please, while men are treated as horses and breeding instruments. He's weak and oppressed in this world, and he doesn't like it. So he fights back. Is that so wrong? We are used to women being the victim in horror movies, usually gaining courage at the end and brutally fighting back. How is his reaction any different?
This battle of the sexes approach -- as well as this topical subtext of religious extremism -- are all interesting ideas that, if done well, could probably form a remake that trumps the original Wicker Man easy. It would probably even be a great movie if LaBute didn't attempt to make a thriller/horror movie out of it.
Stick to what you know, Neil.
"The Wicker Man" opens September 1, 2006 and is rated PG13. Horror, Thriller. Written and directed by Neil LaBute. Starring Ellen Burstyn, Leelee Sobieski, Nicolas Cage.
