Plot
Sergeant Neil Howie receives an anonymous letter requesting his presence on Summerisle, a remote Hebridean island famed for its popular and unusually abundant fruit produce, to take the case of a young girl named Rowan Morrison, who has been missing for a number of months.
Howie, a devout and celibate Christian, travels to the island and is profoundly disturbed to find a society that worships the old pagan, Celtic gods of their ancestors. Couples copulate openly in fields, children are taught in school of the phallic importance of the maypole and frogs are placed in the mouth to cure whooping cough. Howie encounters difficulty in extracting information from the islanders, who claim never to have heard of Rowan, and whose own mother insists does not exist. Rooming at an inn, where he is introduced to the daughter of the landlord, Willow, Howie notices a series of photographs celebrating the island's annual harvests, with each photograph featuring a young girl, the May Queen. The latest photograph is missing due to it being "broken".
After discovering a grave bearing Rowan Morrison's name, Howie's search eventually brings him into contact with the island's community leader, Laird (Lord) Summerisle, who explains to Howie the island's recent history and culture. Summerisle's grandfather, a Victorian scientist, developed several new strains of fruit that he believed could prosper in Scotland's climate. He inculcated in the local populace a belief that the old gods were real and worshiping the gods by farming the new crop strains would deliver them from their meagre livelihood. Howie's exhumation of Rowan's grave reveals only the body of a hare. He angrily confronts Summerisle once more, declaring that he believes that Rowan was murdered as part of a pagan sacrifice.
Howie later discovers that a negative of last year's harvest photograph does in fact exist. It shows Rowan standing amidst a group of boxes, indicating that last year's harvest was a poor one and that the crops—the island's only means of income—had failed. Struck by his research that indicates pagan societies offer a human sacrifice in the event of crop failure, Howie deduces that Rowan is in fact still alive and that she will be sacrificed as part of the May Day celebrations to ensure a plentiful harvest for the coming year.
Howie spends another night at the inn, where Willow openly attempts to seduce him. The next morning, discovering that his plane has been sabotaged, Howie elects to search the island for Rowan himself. He ties up the innkeeper and assumes his place as Punch, a principal character of the May Day festival. Disguised, he joins the procession of islanders as they cavort through the town and perform harmless sacrifices to various gods. Rowan is finally revealed, tied to a post. Howie cuts her free and flees but after a brief chase, emerges at another entrance where Summerisle and his followers stand waiting for them. Howie is shocked to see Rowan merrily embrace her captors and then notices that he is being surrounded.
Lord Summerisle explains to Howie that he was lured to Summerisle by the islanders, who have been successful in a conspiracy to lead him to believe that a missing girl was being held captive, and confirms to him that last year's harvest failed disastrously. Their religion calls for a sacrifice to be made to the sun god. Howie's devout Christian lifestyle and his livelihood as a policeman mean that he meets the outstanding criteria for a human that is to be sacrificed to appease the gods and provide a successful harvest.
In spite of his protests that the crops failed because fruit was not meant to grow on these islands, Howie is stripped bare, dressed in ceremonial robes and led to the summit of a cliff with his hands tied. He is horrified to find a giant, hollow wicker man statue which he is then locked inside. The statue is soon set afire. As the islanders surround the burning wicker man and sing the Middle English folk-song "Sumer Is Icumen In", a terrified Howie curses them and recites Psalm 23 as he prays to God for accession to Heaven. The film ends as the burning head of the wicker man falls from its shoulders.
Read more about this topic: The Wicker Man (1973 film)
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