The Wicker Tree (2012)

Oh hey, look. It's the "companion piece" to the 1973 classic British Horror flick, The Wicker Man!

Forget the fact that it's been nearly 40 years since the original movie came out, and I just don't see how you could really ever hope to do justice to its memory with a modern-day "continuation" of its story, but here it is, none the less!

Beth is a successful American country singer who used to be slutty, but has since found her way to singing the praises of JC. All sluts eventually turn to religion don't they? Because praying more and throwing yourself on the mercy of the holy cross obviously erases every skanky and obscene thing that you've ever done with your dirty mouth and filthy vagina, right?

Yep. That's pretty much a non-debatable fact. Ask Jesus. He'll tell you.

"I gave y'all the H.I.V. but my G.O.D. forgives me, LOL!"

Anywho, Beth and her cowpoke fiance Steve are members of Cowboys for Christ (ugh), and they've been sent by their Evangelical Church to save the heathens of Scotland from themselves, because that's what Religion is all about, after all; persecution and reformation. That actually is a fact.  

Religion is also about basting naked asses with oil, as evidenced by the picture below.

Now this is one aspect of Religion that we can truly get behind. Zing!

Luckily for us, the Scots have their own shit going on and hate being preached to and talked down on, so they decide to kill the rubes, which can only serve to make America a better place in the long run. As you can imagine, sacrificial hi-jinks ensue.

This is why Christians can't have nice things!

The Wicker Tree is a sort-of sequel to the 1973 Horror classic, The Wicker Man (not the abysmal 2006 Nic Cage remake.) According to the director, whom was also the director of the 1973 original, it's more of a companion piece. As "companion pieces" go, however, The Wicker Tree is rather embarrassing and really does nothing beneficial for its predecessor, or itself for that matter.

Whereas the 1973 Wicker movie was so odd that it ended up being creepy, the updated Wicker universe is more goofy and over dramatic than anything else. Really, I don't know why we were expecting it to be good, but we found ourselves a bit let down as the credits began to roll. Maybe because instead of giving us another unique and good movie, all we were left with was the thought "why didn't they just leave well enough alone?"

There's nothing that Scotland and its people could possibly love more than 2 Bible-thumping rubes from the U.S. of A. crossing the pond to save them from their unjust lives and skewed belief systems, is there? Hell no there ain't, cause everyone who ain't believe in Jesus Christ needs savin', ain't they? This movie is definitely on a bit of a Bible Bashing bent; when our innocent country singin' heroine says "Everything in the Bible is inspired by God, so it must be true, right?" It's apparent that we're to believe that all Americans are sheepish simpletons... and we can't really argue that fact, because there's some truth to it. Still, true or not, don't preach.

There's a lot of truth going on in this picture.

It's misleading to see Christopher Lee in the trailer for this movie, mainly because he was in this movie for about 15.4 seconds. If you're going to make it look as if he's in your film, at least give him a small cameo... then again, he most likely didn't want one. For your deception, you sub-par and sneaky film, you get the Wicker Man 2006 Remake Hall of Shame Award! Not exactly sure what that is, but you fucking deserve it!

Not the BEES!

There's some blood and violence to be had here, most notably the scene with "Tex" in the ruins; we won't spoil what that involves, but it involves a lot of nudity and someone being eaten to death. (That actually kinda spoiled it.)

Sweet, sweet Honeysuckle Weeks; despite having what may be one of the silliest first names ever, she brought her A-game in this one, and by A-game, we mean shameless nudity. She's not the only one, as many others in the movie shed their clothes for the greater good, but she was by far the most impressive.

Edited for our younger viewers, who screw up all of our good, naked pics.

We learned that nearly 40 years is far too long to wait to make a sequel to a Cult Classic, unless of course you don't mind it being out of touch with everything about the original. Also, Honeysuckle is apparently the Scottish word for "Village Whore."

Not totally Irredeemable, The Wicker Tree is none the less a sequel that might have been better off never being made. The feel of the original is almost completely absent from this lukewarm follow up, and honestly, we aren't sure what the point of this film even was. You might enjoy it as an homage or companion piece to the original Cult Classic, but just don't expect much.

D+

At least Honeysuckle Weeks wasn't afraid to bare it all in an effort to do her part, and she did it more than once. Cheers, Honeysuckle. We're also betting that in High School, someone called her "Honeyfuckle" at least once. They just had to.