The Wicker Man
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: September 1, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
36
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 19 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
9
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
New York PostKyle Smith
Profoundly disturbing, blood-chilling suspenser. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
Despite its logy, red-herring structure, the film has enough enigma and weirdness that it gradually stirs to life. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
As it is, LaBute has cleverly repurposed his creepy source material. This Wicker Man, which wasn't screened for critics, is a nutty atonement for the gender assaults of his filmmaking and playwriting past, including "In the Company of Men," "Your Friends & Neighbors," and "The Shape of Things." Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesMark Olsen
In the end, LaBute's remake is an interesting idea that never transforms into a particularly satisfying movie. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
Well intentioned, but only occasionally creepy. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
For this remake writer-director Neil LaBute has moved the action from Scotland to Washington State, added enough scares for Warner Brothers to market the movie as horror, and turned the story into an almost comically Wagnerian expression of the castration anxiety that snakes through his original screenplays. Read full review
42
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
The Wicker Man is too loony to be a drama, too earnest to be a comedy, too predictable to be a horror film. Read full review
40
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
The Wicker Man isn't all that bad a movie; it's visually striking and ambitious in some ways. It just fails to bring enough to the table to fully distance itself from the original. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyMichael Atkinson
This wasn't a horror film the first time around, and LaBute makes sorry feints at effective creepiness, letting the story roam in circles just like Cage. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
Unlikely to inspire a passionate following similar to the original, the film, which opened Friday without being screened for the press, ultimately induces more titters than dread. Read full review
40
VarietyJoe Leydon
Any provocative questions LaBute might have wanted to raise are totally obscured as the rising tide of absurdity gradually overwhelms the entire enterprise. Read full review
40
Washington PostStephen Hunter
In an era of careful cost accountancy and focus-group testing, it's remarkable that a movie as truly, deeply, madly foolish as The Wicker Man escaped the asylum. But we must be grateful for the endless guffaws and gasps and outright stunned silences it unleashes on lucky audiences. Read full review
38
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
There may be a way to remake 1973's cult thriller The Wicker Man, in which a deeply Christian cop has his religious convictions shaken to the core as he investigates the disappearance of a child from within a cheerfully pagan community, but Neil LaBute didn't find it. Read full review
38
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
As an allegory of religious conflict, the '73 film is brilliantly constructed and ends with a punctuation mark that was shocking in its day. LaBute's movie attempts to shock, as well, and does: Given the names involved and the casting of Cage, it is shockingly bad. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
LaBute has transformed the eerie, disturbing psychological thriller into an unintentional comedy. At times, The Wicker Man is hilariously bad. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubTasha Robinson
Turns a cultishly creepy classic into a dull and windy farce. Read full review
30
The New York TimesDana Stevens
A movie like this can survive an absurd premise but not incompetent execution. And Mr. LaBute, never much of an artist with the camera, proves almost comically inept as a horror-movie technician...It's neither haunting nor amusing; just boring. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jennie Punter
The Wicker Man is one of those "what were they thinking?" movies. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Do yourself a favor: Go rent Hardy's original film, watch it, and then try and get it out of your head. You never, ever will. Read full review
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