The Wicker Man

A bona-fide train wreck. One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. The Wicker Man is a prime example of sarcasm without irony, so the laughs are laughs of embarrassment for the filmmakers, not the characters on screen. To pull off this kind of satire, there needs to be a sincere hope by the audience that a character, however delusional, will get what they want. Nurse Betty, for example – a better Neil LaBute movie. But Nic Cage’s dour performance offsets any need to see him succeed, and therefore his quest becomes meaningless. Does that make sense? No? Okay, well it was dumb. They weren’t even trying.