Samuel LoveIn The Wicker Man’s 50th year, fans and scholars alike are still discussing Robin Hardy’s enormously influential horror. But while it has long been considered that the film is the prime example of the ‘folk horror’ subgenre, Steve A. Wiggins argues in his fifth book there is a stronger case to be made that the film is a ‘holiday horror’.
Holiday horror is, quite simply, a subgenre of horror films set during holidays and pulling their main identity from that. While the key examples are films like Halloween (dir. John Carpenter) and Black Christmas (dir. Bob Clark), this fascinating study suggests that The Wicker Man has more in common with this subgenre than the more simplistic label of folk horror.
Wiggins, self-proclaimed on his website as an “erstwhile academic and indefatigable writer” among other things, makes his case succinctly and passionately across the book’s brief 120 pages. With a thorough walk through the film and its content, while comparing with an overview of Beltane and real May Day celebrations, the book is packed with valuable insight. This is a wise and intelligent study, with the author’s background in faith – he majored in studies of religion and had intended to be a minister – certainly lending credence to the book’s theories and understanding of the film’s religious content.
The Wicker Man is a long-awaited entry in the Devil’s Advocates book series – now over 50 books and counting, including entries on everything from Halloween and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to Ju-on: The Grudge and The Blair Witch Project – and it was worth the wait. It speaks volumes to The Wicker Man’s longevity and power that even now, in its’ 50th year, new insight and analysis still prove themselves to be essential reading.
Devil’s Advocates: The Wicker Man by Steve A. Wiggins is published by Liverpool University Press, and is available to order direct.
