Since its release in 1973, Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man has exerted a profound influence on the development of horror cinema, a rich vein of folk music, and the modern pagan revival more generally. Anthony Shaffer's ingenious screenplay gives us a thrilling yarn that is also a meditation on the nature of religious belief and practice. Just in time for Halloween, Phil and JF discuss the philosophical ideas that undergird this folk horror classic, focusing on the perennial role of sacrifice in religious thought.
REFERENCES
Robin Hardy (director), The Wicker Man
Stanley Kubrick (director), The Shining
Terence Fisher (director), The Devil Rides Out
Piers Haggard (director), Blood on Satan’s Claw
John Boorman (director), Deliverance
Rob Young, Electric Eden
Gerald Gardner, English wiccan
Margaret Murray, English anthropologist
Cecil Sharp, English ethnomusicologist
Phil Ford, "Taboo: Time and Belief in Exotica"
Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices