The Wicker Tree
2011 Dir. Robin Hardy Based on Hardy’s own novel Cowboys For Christ, The Wicker Tree isn’t so much a sequel to The Wicker Man , more a curious companion piece. Incorporating many of the same themes, it is the tale of two young chaste American missionaries who travel to the wilds of Scotland to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to people who ‘don’t believe in angels.’ Seemingly embraced by the local community, the pair are invited to participate in the annual May Queen celebrations, with inevitably fatal consequences… The Wicker Man cast a long shadow over cult horror cinema. While it is none other than Robin Hardy who has returned to plough the furrow of folk horror, religious extremism and earthy sensuality he tilled with that film, the results this time around are much less fertile. The source material, his novel Cowboys For Christ , unfurled as a slow-burning, evocatively written work that pitched modern evangelical Christianity against paganism and built slowly and surely...