27 days of nite - THE WICKER MAN (Hardy, 1973)

I don't mean to turn this into a humanistic rant, but this is really an atheist horror film, right? Maybe that's just my culturally-influenced reading of it, but when the sergeant is begging for his life at the end, crying out, "Think!" I have to sort of chuckle. It's easy for him to tell the primitive people to "think" but how often does he think about his own religion? Why is it to easy for religious people to write off an entire other group of people's thoughts? Those people arrived at their religious beliefs the same way you did. They believe them just as intensely as you believe yours (and, in the case of the inhabitants of Summerisle, they believe them more). Again, this is just my interpretation of the film, but I can't help thinking how if every person in the world decided to stop believing in god, there would be no god to kill in the name of. THE WICKER MAN is an extraordinary film, a horror movie that is almost entirely devoid of violence. It's got wonderful, surreal visuals and tons of nudity and the shots at the end of the film are utterly gorgeous. I love the climax of the film, as well, when the flames do rise, and the camera cuts away from the sergeant and zooms in on the sun and it's wonderful. This one is a landmark film about cultural collision and the need for, yes, thinking, when two divergent sets of values come into contact with one another.