A few summers back, I built and burned my own 10-foot wicker man near my home in Shropshire, and for me and many others, the film was a gateway for further ‘ Folk Horror’ gems, like Blood on Satan’s Claw (1970), and Witchfinder General (1968). But even before I left for New Zealand I’d already seen the film countless times after teenage me first stumbled across it on late night TV. Since then, I’ve maintained my admiration for The Wicker Man. The Wicker Man, in my opinion, is one of the best British films, but the reasons for this might be too many to list (especially when you’re sat in an empty canteen in New Zealand, with a dozen or so drunken, hungry men who by general consensus found the film baffling and dislikeable.) That was about three years ago. I stressed to my fellow curry-eaters that obviously I didn’t want to go back to that – the actual Pagan activities depicted in the film – but that the film itself was just palpably British, and it was enough to make me nostalgic. I was having a bit of a rough time anyway in Wellington, being mostly jobless and with money swiftly dwindling. How it reminded me of Britain and made me miss everything about it. Then I admitted how watching it that night, on the big screen, actually made me homesick. I rolled out the handful of Wicker Man facts everybody knows (that Christopher Lee did it for free because they couldn’t match his usual fee, and that the original prints are thought to have been destroyed and used as landfill) in the hope that it would give it some kind of underdog-like context: in truth this is one of the reasons why I do like the film. People muttered under their breath, “What he hell was that shit?”, and “Is there any way I can un-watch that?”, whilst others actually came to me (as if I was a translator) for an explanation firstly about what the film was about, and secondly why I liked it so much. The atmosphere, as I recall, was strange. We all shuffled through to the canteen whilst someone went and fetched the curries. By the time the film finished, we were all quite pissed, having drunk plenty of beer and without the padding of any food yet. Even though our group was a exotic mix of diverse international ambassadors from as far afield as Canada, England, New Zealand, England, Australia and England, nobody else had ever seen the film, so it was decided that it deserved a go. When no one else came forward with a suggestion for the inaugural film, I recommended The Wicker Man (1973). One night, someone revealed to us that he had after-hours access to Avalon TV Studios in Lower Hutt, and that we could all go there and watch something on the big screen any time. Then we’d sit in front of the TV and eat. It was, as the name suggests, an excuse for blokes to get together, eat curry, and drink beer (specialist breweries, usually.) We’d meet at someone’s house, knock back a few ales whilst shooting the shit, then eventually pop down the street to the local take-away just before closing time. Whilst living in New Zealand, I attended a fortnightly gathering in Wellington called Curry-Beer-Men.
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