Another key director has been snatched away by 2016. Robin Hardy, the man behind ‘The Wicker Man’ has passed away at the age of 86…
While Robin St. Clair Rimington Hardy might not have been the most prolific director in the industry, there can be little doubt that he made his mark.
The English-born writer and director is probably most famous for The Wicker Man, the horror classic that starred Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Hammer Films legend Ingrid Pitt and cinematic stalwart Sir Christopher Lee and told of an island investigation that goes horribly wrong for a naive, virginial policeman from the Scottish mainland. the ending of the film is considered one of the greatest ‘shock’ moments in the entire horror genre.
Several diverse directors cited Hardy’s Wicker Man as a major influence. Joe Dante tweeted: ‘RIP Robin Hardy, director of THE WICKER MAN (the good one). Still one of the most unique and unsettling horror films ever’. Edgar Wright spoke of the impact the film had had on his own films and tweeted: ‘R.I.P Robin Hardy, director of hugely influential horror ‘The Wicker Man‘. There would be no ‘Hot Fuzz‘ without it.’
But the film has always been shrouded in controversy due to different cuts, rumours of lost footage and attitudes of the people involved and some of its appeal has no doubt arisen from those stories as much as the ones on screen. Several years ago a 35mm release print – which had been put together for the film’s 1979 American release was discovered at Harvard Film Archives. In 2013 it was re-released into cinemas and then onto blu-ray and DVD as The Wicker Man: Final Cut. Impact contributor Tony Earnshaw was a friend of Hardy’s and interviewed him on stage several times and agreed that the film is a true cornerstone of the horror genre.
Hardy later directed The Fantasist (1986) with Moira Sinise and Christopher Cazenove and wrote the novel Cowboys for Christ which was later reworked by him into a thematic sequel to his seminal work and entitled The Wicker Tree in 2011.
The Wicker Man was remade with Nicolas Cage in the Woodward role in 2006 but was largely derided as a very inferior reworking of the central story. The original remains a bizarre but enduring landmark.
