The Wicker Man

Sergeant Neil Howie, a devout Christian Scottish police officer, flies his small seaplane to the remote Hebridean island of Summerisle after receiving an anonymous letter reporting that a young girl, Rowan Morrison, has vanished. He is met at the harbour with polite confusion. The islanders insist Rowan never existed. Her own mother turns him away.

The longer Howie stays, the more unsettled he becomes. Children at the local school are taught the maypole as a phallic symbol. Women leap naked over bonfires in the orchards. The pub landlord's daughter Willow tries to seduce him through the bedroom wall with song; Howie, a virgin saving himself for marriage, refuses. He realises Summerisle has not been Christian for generations.

He meets Lord Summerisle, the island's aristocratic ruler, who explains the history: his Victorian agronomist grandfather encouraged the residents to abandon a failing Christianity and return to the ancient gods to make the harsh land fertile. The community has thrived ever since. Howie is openly horrified.

He pieces together that the previous year's apple harvest failed and the May Day celebration is hours away. He suspects Rowan has been hidden for sacrifice. He finds her empty grave, a hare in a coffin in her place, and a photograph of her cropped from the records of last year's harvest. He drugs the innkeeper Macgregor, steals his fool's costume, and infiltrates the May Day procession among the masked revellers.

The procession winds through the island and ends at a sea cave near the cliffs. Howie sees Rowan tied up there and saves her — and she leads him out into the sunlight, where Lord Summerisle and the entire community are waiting. Rowan was bait. The harvest demands a sacrifice with four qualities: a fool, a king for a day, a willing virgin, and one who came of his own free will. Howie, unwittingly, has fulfilled all four.

The islanders drag him to the cliff where a colossal wicker effigy stands, filled with caged animals. Howie prays as a Christian and condemns them with the wrath of his god. They sing 'Sumer Is Icumen In' as the wicker man is set ablaze. He burns alive inside it as the sun sets over the sea, the head of the effigy collapsing slowly into the flames.