The Wicker Man

• Christopher Lee took no salary for the role, believing in the project after every scheduled press screening fell through; he also personally paid to fly to America and bring critics to see the film once distributor British Lion showed little faith in it.
• Star Britt Ekland used a body double (dancer Lorraine Peters) for portions of her nude "Willow's Song" seduction dance; Ekland later said she was upset to learn how much of the sequence wasn't actually her.
• The film was shot on location around Galloway in southwest Scotland, including Newton Stewart, Kirkcudbright, Gatehouse of Fleet, Anwoth and Creetown, with local residents recruited as extras for the maypole dance and other village scenes.
• The Wicker Man flopped on its 1973 release, with incoming British Lion chief Michael Deeley reportedly calling it one of the worst films he'd ever seen; its cult reputation didn't take off until a 1977 Cinefantastique cover story dubbed it "the Citizen Kane of horror movies."
• Director Robin Hardy's preferred cut ran close to 100 minutes, but British Lion trimmed it to 87 minutes (cutting one of its folk-song numbers) so it could run as the lower half of a double bill with Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now.
• After the original film elements were lost, later prints of the film survived in large part thanks to Roger Corman, who ended up holding one of the only more-complete copies; one persistent rumor claims the discarded negative was buried in landfill beneath the M3 motorway.

Howie is not merely a victim but the perfect 'king' sacrifice because his virginity, authority as a policeman, and arrival of his own free will make him a vessel of pure power the islanders need more than they need a sinner.

The entire investigation is an elaborate gaslighting campaign designed to break Howie's psychological defenses, ensuring his fear and anger at the moment of death maximize the ritual's energetic output.

Lord Summerisle may already suspect the crops will fail again despite the ritual, suggesting the final burning is a desperate act by a leadership class clinging to dogma even as their world collapses.

Sergeant Neil Howie, a rigid Christian constable, lands on the remote Scottish island of Summerisle hunting a missing girl, only to find the locals dancing to a pagan drumbeat that drowns out his hymns. The islanders, led by the charismatic Lord Summerisle, openly mock his faith while preparing a May Day harvest ritual after a disastrous crop failure. Howie's investigation peels back layers of deceit until he realizes the missing-girl report was a lure: Rowan is alive and unharmed, and the true target of the sacrifice was Howie himself, the pure, virgin representative of the law who came to the island of his own free will. Trapped inside the wicker giant's belly, the policeman becomes the unwilling offering, his screams and prayers swallowed by the crowd's jubilant chant as fire consumes the effigy and the island's hoped-for fertility is sealed.