“Things in their natural state have the most vivid colors.”

-Willow

First off, without doubt, Neil LaBute’s The Wicker Man is a total piece of shit. That being said, it is an interesting piece of shit, and warrants at least a discussion before it is flushed into the collective unconscious. Lady In the Water is another perfectly good example of another recent interesting piece of shit. And both The Wicker Man remake and Lady In the Water seem to suffer from the directors’ projecting a bit too much of their own egos and bitterness on screen.

In the case of Lady In the Water, the film seems to exist to serve two purposes: 1) to show the world that Shyamalan is reinventing film in a way that may only be understood in the future (comparing himself repeatedly, in both his film and new book, to Bob Dylan); and 2) to give a big “fuck you” to movie critics who would dare doubt him.

As for LaBute and The Wicker Man remake, he has been criticized several times in the past for having very cynical portrayals of women in his films, such as In the Company of Men and The Shapes of Things. They are attributed a certain deviousness, and though it can be argued that some of his male characters have that trait as well, even-handedness doesn’t seem to be one of Labute’s strong points.

And so, with his reputation on the line, LaBute has somehow transformed an excellent cult classic into something that at least appears incredibly hostile toward women, whether or not that was his intention. I’ll elaborate on this point a little later on. And if the movie wasn’t already going to be bad enough, the studio has to take the film and cram it into a tiny box labeled “safe, mediocre supernatural thriller; target audience 15-18.”

The original story, as written by acclaimed playwright Anthony Schaffer, goes as follows: A devout Christian police officer is summoned by letter to a remote island off the Scottish coast to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. He arrives and is immediately suspicious of the offbeat townsfolk who seem to all have something to hide. He gradually learns of their ways, from their pagan, sexually liberated lifestyles to their practicing of ancient Celtic fertility rituals and their “unusual” ideas on death and rebirth. He himself is nearly seduced to the bedroom of the landlord’s daughter, but he sticks to his moral high ground in a place where his own morals have been turned upside down. He comes to believe that the townsfolk are hiding the missing girl and are planning to sacrifice her for some sort of holiday ritual. He then discovers that it is HE, and not the missing girl, who will become a sacrifice to the Sun in order to save the island’s failing crops. He is taken to a large wooden structure of a man in which he, and other animals, are locked inside and burned alive. As it burns, the townsfolk sing to their god, and the police officer cries out to his.

So what changes are in the remake? It’s not Scotland, it’s Washington, and the movie loses any chance of recreating the wonderful atmosphere of the original. It doesn’t have that “otherness” quality to it, and no amazing, eerie Scottish music either. The police officer is played by Nicolas Cage, whom I have no grudges against, but you might as well remake A Clockwork Orange with Matt Damon as Alex while you’re at it. And instead of improving on the whole Christian in a pagan land/fish out of water angle, he is cut down to this mostly one-dimensional character. No religious background mentioned; apparently you can talk about religion and moral dilemmas in the 70s, but not today, in 2006? This is, in my opinion, the strongest example of wasted potential in the remake.

In this version, he is summoned to the island by an ex-girlfriend (that bitch) who says that her daughter is missing. Hm, this is a coincidence because he just saw a small girl die in a fiery automobile explosion while on duty. He has several flashbacks to this scene, and he becomes obsessed on the connection between the girl who died and the missing girl on the island. You are aware that the filmmaker is pushing some kind of “supernatural” connection between the two girls, but you have to wait patiently for the puzzle pieces to connect. And they don’t. The car crash and the dead little girl have nothing to do with…anything. That poster with the ghost demon girl is straight up misleading. It seems that Labute was pushed to really work that supernatural angle of the film to attract a younger audience, and the flashback scenes begin to become white elephants, even more so when you realize they have absolutely nothing to do with the main plot.

The most crucial change in the remake is that the townsfolk are all men-hating women. There are a few men on the island, but they are designated for work and, occasionally, procreation. When spoken to, they cower and hide their faces. The women are bitter toward him, and seem to resent the fact that a man, a speaking man, is inhabiting their haven. They are also, for the most part, very butch, and very intimidating. Instead of coming off as pagan or accultic, they seem more like some intensified, hyper-feminist/ naturalist group: a real Christian right nightmare, but like I said, the movie doesn’t hit the religious angle. And then, his ex-girlfriend tells him that she doesn’t really trust the women on the island either, and also that it is THEIR daughter that is missing. This is the main reason that he is compelled to stay. She has broken his heart in the past, but he is willing to forgive her as he searches for their girl. There is even some partial reconciliation of their love toward each other, or so it seems. Can he trust her? Hell no. He is brought to the revelation that she only had a relationship with him in the past in order to obtain a sacrifice: him.

And so, in the original version we have an entire village that is more or less equally devious. And in this new version, we have the deviousness mostly channeled or acted out by this ex-girlfriend, whom he has given an undeserved amount of trust in. If there are any real cathartic moments in the film in which it appears that Cage might triumph, it is in three brief instances. One involves Cage staring down a lady who looks like Kathy Bates’ much more butch sister, before punching her in the face. The second occurs when he karate kicks another girl (LeeLee Sobieski) into a mirror. And the third occurs when he punches another woman in the face. While wearing a bear costume.

As for the ending, the original Wicker Man revolves around this turning point in which the police officer learns that it is he who will be sacrificed. Of course, if you’re remaking a film that revolves around a certain turning point, you lose quite a bit of the oomph of that revelation. If someone remade The Sixth Sense, there’s no real way to make the audience forget that Bruce Willis is a ghost. And so what is LaBute’s solution? Add ANOTHER twisty-looking thing on the end of it. I could hear groans as 6 MONTHS LATER popped up on the screen after Cage is burned alive (screaming, “Bitches, you bitches!” I might add). It’s not exactly a twist per se. It involves LeeLee Sobieski and Cage’s ex-girlfriend in a bar/nightclub looking for the island’s next victim (who happens to be James Franco from Spiderman). I suppose Labute sees this as potent dark irony, that these devious bitches are once again exploiting these more-or-less nice guys who are just out to have a good time, but the scene comes off as straight up silly. I wouldn’t have been surprised if “Dedicated to my Ex-Girlfriend” had popped up on the screen at the end.

And “silly” is the note that this film ends on, while the original leaves the viewer possibly a bit shaken, or at least somewhat compelled. I see staggering potential in a film like the original Wicker Man because we live in a world where true moral dilemmas occur every single day. To revive some sort of religious discourse through film today would have been an admirable feat, but LaBute decided it was more important to project his own issues on screen. Perhaps this is an upcoming trend in film, the Rise of the Ego.

Brandon Gray is a film student and movie enthusiast.