 | Not a horror film, but a striking lesson about gods both old and new, and the sacrifices their worhsip demands.
Not really a horror: partly because Britt Ekland gets her gear off; partly because of Woodward’s telling portrayal of a repressed police sergeant; and partly because of the gloriously watchable Christopher Lee and his entourage ("I trust the sight of the young people refreshes you…"), but mostly because of the masterfully woven atmosphere of … well, if I tell you I’ll spoil the climax.
It’s not a horror film of darkened alleys and grunge-filled ordure, it is instead a sunlit (albeit, Scottish sun) horror film of the mind.
Woodward’s Christian policeman arrives at small Scottish island Summerisle to investigate a missing child, only to find himself in the middle of a pagan fertility cult where local school children dance the maypole around a giant phallus, and in which villagers prepare for the Mayday festival ("the day of death and re-birth") by donning animal masks, watering graves, and holding naked, moonlight dances over small fires. All the while the close-knit locals resist the policeman’s questions about the missing child. They don’t want to find Rowan Morrison, and Woodward soon finds out why!!
It’s not a horror film of darkened alleys and grunge-filled ordure, it is instead a sunlit (albeit, Scottish sun) horror film of the mind. Seductive, erotic, and frightening.
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