Saturday Music for the Pagans in the Audience

If THE FUTURIST! were to list the most frightening films he has ever seen, he would most certainly include Robin Hardy's THE WICKER MAN. Even viewed in its edited form interrupted by commercials on a late night television broadcast, this tale of a Scottish policeman investigating the mysterious disappearance of a young girl on a neighboring island was terrifying. The mood permeated all moments of interruption in THE FUTURIST!'s mind. The film's terrifying conclusion plays out in broad beautiful sunlight and that very scenic set makes the fright more creepy and emotional. It makes you, as many a good film does, feel sympathy even for a very unsympathetic character. It makes you question your beliefs about a higher power and the rigidity of other's rock hard religious ideas. Who is to say what one believes is the right answer and what another believes is the wrong? The friendly, folksy ways of many of the island's townspeople masquerade pure evil from our point of view, eventually, but not in their perception ... as does this folk song that accompanies a scene of mental erotic seduction as a naked Britt Ekland dances and slithers against the opposite wall of a boardinghouse room. On the other side of that room is a man of strict religious upbringing who feels the temptation and is angry and very scared ... as you shall be while watching this brilliantly constructed cult horror film.

Listen:


WILLOW'S SONG
from the film THE WICKER MAN (1973)
composed by Paul Giovanni