The Wicker Man Enigma is a 35 minute-ish documentary that features on quite a few DVD editions of the classic horror film The Wicker Man (1973), as far as these sorts of documentary's go it's a good 'un.
A lot of the films production team are featured in the documentary, from the director & writer to the stars. It's basically a chronological story in which the cast & crew detail the making of the film & it's distribution problems starting with writer Anthony Shaffer who goes into the inspiration behind the film saying that he wanted to write a horror film but something significantly different from the likes of what Hammer studios were churning out. Various people talk about the making of the film & there's a neat montage here of locations from the film as they were in 2000, I'd have said as they are now but this documentary was made 7 years ago & it's not unreasonable to think the locations might have significantly changed again. Christopher Lee again claims that he got paid nothing for making The Wicker Man & he still has his contract to prove it. Then it goes into the problems they had with the distributors & that the head of EMI told Christopher Lee it was one of the ten worst films he'd ever seen, it had chunks edited out of it & placed on a double bill with Don't Look now (1973) which the company also hated. Then there's the tragic story of how all the negatives, cut footage & outtakes were buried under the M3 by mistake before it goes on to discuss how the film is thought of these days & it's 'revival'.
Now, The Wicker Man Enigma would have been a great documentary as it's very informative, the interviewees speak freely & it's not a back patting self congratulatory promotional piece if not for the bizarre presentation. We have all seen films in widescreen on our TV's where there are black bars at the top & bottom of the screen which is fine but on The Wicker Man Enigma there are horrible distracting black bars on all four sides of the frame, why is the question I ask here, why? It's almost like there's a TV 'within' your TV & I am at a loss to see why the makers put a huge black frame around the picture, I personally found it irritating beyond belief but there you go.
Overall this is a great documentary but why the black frame? It's a very odd film-making decision & it bugged me more & more as time went by, I suppose it's a small grumble though when you consider it's a free extra on a DVD. Definitely worth a watch if your a fan of the film.
A lot of the films production team are featured in the documentary, from the director & writer to the stars. It's basically a chronological story in which the cast & crew detail the making of the film & it's distribution problems starting with writer Anthony Shaffer who goes into the inspiration behind the film saying that he wanted to write a horror film but something significantly different from the likes of what Hammer studios were churning out. Various people talk about the making of the film & there's a neat montage here of locations from the film as they were in 2000, I'd have said as they are now but this documentary was made 7 years ago & it's not unreasonable to think the locations might have significantly changed again. Christopher Lee again claims that he got paid nothing for making The Wicker Man & he still has his contract to prove it. Then it goes into the problems they had with the distributors & that the head of EMI told Christopher Lee it was one of the ten worst films he'd ever seen, it had chunks edited out of it & placed on a double bill with Don't Look now (1973) which the company also hated. Then there's the tragic story of how all the negatives, cut footage & outtakes were buried under the M3 by mistake before it goes on to discuss how the film is thought of these days & it's 'revival'.
Now, The Wicker Man Enigma would have been a great documentary as it's very informative, the interviewees speak freely & it's not a back patting self congratulatory promotional piece if not for the bizarre presentation. We have all seen films in widescreen on our TV's where there are black bars at the top & bottom of the screen which is fine but on The Wicker Man Enigma there are horrible distracting black bars on all four sides of the frame, why is the question I ask here, why? It's almost like there's a TV 'within' your TV & I am at a loss to see why the makers put a huge black frame around the picture, I personally found it irritating beyond belief but there you go.
Overall this is a great documentary but why the black frame? It's a very odd film-making decision & it bugged me more & more as time went by, I suppose it's a small grumble though when you consider it's a free extra on a DVD. Definitely worth a watch if your a fan of the film.
