10 Awful Movie Remakes With Silver Linings You Can't Ignore
2. The Wicker Man
The Movie: The original British version of The Wicker Man, inspired by David Pinner's novel Ritual, is a truly iconic horror movie about a devout Catholic policeman (Edward Woodward) traveling to a remote Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl only to discover that he has been lured there by a mysterious Pagan cult led by Lord Summerisle (the excellent Christopher Lee). With a folksy soundtrack and a surreal unsettling ambiance which pervades throughout, it fully deserves its status as a cult classic. Few remakes in the history of cinema are as misguided and completely off the mark as Neil LaBute's 2006 version starring Nicolas Cage. Inexplicably relocating the action to present day America, this wicker man is atrociously acted and scripted with a tone which wavers everywhere except where it should, leading Christopher Lee to comment after its release, "I don't believe in remakes. You can make a follow up to a film, but to remake a movie with such history and success just doesn't make sense to me." The Silver Lining: Strangely enough, the remake of The Wicker Man has gone on to earn itself something of a cult following on the grounds of its consistent - albeit completely unintentional - hilarity. These fans have a point - if you watch it without comparison to the original and treat it as a textbook example of "it's so bad it's good" then there's a considerable amount of pleasure to be had. And let's not forget one of the greatest awful lines in movie history: "The bees! Not the bees! Anything but the bees! My eyes!!" Bad doesn't get this good.
