The Wicker Man (2006) Review — The Really Bad Actor Man

You get the letter on a Tuesday. It’s from her — the one who got away, the one you never quite stopped thinking about. Her little girl is missing. Vanished. And she’s begging you, of all people, to come find her. So you do what any haunted ex-cop with a guilt complex and a badge would do: you get on a seaplane and fly to an island off the Washington coast that isn’t on any map you trust.

The island is wrong from the first step. The women run everything and answer nothing. The men stare at their shoes. Honey is everywhere — in the shops, in the rituals, dripping down altars — and yet the harvest is failing, and nobody wants to talk about why. Every question you ask gets a smile in return. Every smile has too many teeth. The little girl you’re looking for? Nobody’s seen her. Nobody’s heard of her. Nobody, they all insist, in perfect unison, while standing in front of a photograph of her.

Welcome to Summersisle, horror lover. The bees know what they did here. And so, unfortunately, will you.

The Review

Let’s get the lay of the land, spoiler-light: Edward Malus — played by Nicolas Cage in what we’ll generously call “a performance” — is a California highway patrolman still chewing on the trauma of a roadside tragedy he couldn’t prevent. When his ex-fiancée Willow (Kate Beahan) writes that her young daughter Rowan has disappeared from the private island of Summersisle, Malus ferries over to investigate. The island is a neo-pagan matriarchy led by the imperious Sister Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn), its economy built on honey, its harvest failing, its residents evasive to the point of parody. Malus is convinced the girl is alive and hidden. The islanders are convinced Malus is an idiot. Reader, the islanders have a point — but not the one they think.

Here’s the thing you need to understand about this movie, and I say this as someone who genuinely reveres the original: the 1973 Wicker Man is a masterpiece of slow-burn dread, one of the great folk horror films ever made. Robin Hardy’s original is patient, eerie, and quietly devastating. Neil LaBute — a genuinely talented playwright and filmmaker — looked at that film and said, “What if I kept the skeleton, threw out the soul, and let Nicolas Cage scream at insects for two hours?” And Warner Bros. said, “Here’s forty million dollars.”

Now. The performances. Ellen Burstyn is a national treasure doing her level best with dialogue that sounds like it was translated from ancient Sumerian by a committee. She delivers every line with the serene menace of a woman who knows exactly how this ends, and she’s the only person on screen who seems aware she’s in a horror movie. Kate Beahan is fine. Leelee Sobieski is fine. Everybody else is scenery with secrets.

And then there’s Cage. Horror lover, I need you to understand the arc here. This is the man who won an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas. The man who was electrifying in Adaptation. And in this film, he delivers a performance that can only be described as a man fighting his own face for screen time. He bellows. He whispers. He headbutts a woman in a bar. He pulls a gun on a child and screams “STEP AWAY FROM THE BIKE!” He dons a bear costume — an actual, full-body bear costume — and uses it to punch a woman square in the face. David calls this one “The Really Bad Actor Man,” and I hate how accurate that is, because I liked Nicolas Cage. I still like Nicolas Cage! But this movie is the reason people started saying his name like it’s a weather event.

The tone is the real casualty. LaBute plays everything dead straight — this is a serious film about serious themes — while the movie itself is detonating comedy mines every ten minutes. Malus shakes a burned doll in a woman’s face shrieking “HOW’D IT GET BURNED?! HOW’D IT GET BURNED?!” He gets strapped into a helmet, has bees poured onto his head, and delivers the line that launched a thousand memes: “No! Not the bees! NOT THE BEES! AAAAAAAH!” His dying words — his dying words — are “Killing me won’t bring back your goddamn honey!” I have seen this movie three times, and I still can’t tell you if LaBute knew how funny it was. Cage himself later admitted the film was “absurd.” That’s the star. Of the movie. Calling his own movie absurd. In public.

As actual horror? It’s a husk. The 1973 film built dread from culture clash and creeping realization; this one has no patience for any of that. The mystery has zero tension because the islanders are so transparently lying that a toddler could crack the case in act one. Malus “investigates” by shouting at people and committing assault, and the film mistakes his escalating hysteria for stakes. The pagan world-building is paper-thin — all buzzwords, no belief system. You’re supposed to feel the ancient weight of ritual; instead you feel the modern weight of a $40 million budget evaporating in real time.

But — and this is the part that keeps me from giving it the full zero-skull treatment — it is never boring. There is a version of this movie that’s a dull, competent failure, and thank every dark god it isn’t that. This is a spectacular failure, the kind you watch with friends and a drink, shouting the lines back at the screen. The Alamo Drafthouse runs quote-along screenings. People recite this movie. You don’t get that from boring bad. You get that from the special, lightning-in-a-bottle kind of bad — the kind where an Oscar winner in a bear suit punches a lady and a generation says, “Yes. Cinema.”

So is it good? Absolutely not. Is it essential viewing? Honestly… yeah. Just not for the reasons LaBute intended. Watch the 1973 original for a masterpiece. Watch this one for the bees.

Trivia & Facts

• It lost money. Made for $40 million, it grossed roughly $38.8 million worldwide — a certified box office bomb, and one of the most expensive unintentional comedies ever produced.
• The Razzies noticed. Five Golden Raspberry nominations: Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Cage), Worst Screenplay (LaBute), Worst Remake, and the all-timer — Worst Screen Couple, for Cage and his bear suit. It lost all five to Basic Instinct 2 and Little Man, which tells you what kind of year 2006 was.
• Cage called it “absurd” himself. In 2010, Cage admitted: “There is a mischievous mind at work on The Wicker Man… I might have known that the movie was meant to be absurd.” He also once pitched taking the character to Japan as a ghost. Somebody fund that.
• It was filmed in Canada, not Washington. Shot on Bowen Island, British Columbia, in the summer of 2005 — standing in for the misty Pacific Northwest. Released by Warner Bros. on September 1, 2006.
• The original’s director disowned it. Robin Hardy, who directed the 1973 classic, publicly distanced himself from the remake. He later made his own spiritual sequel, The Wicker Tree (2011), as if to say “let me show you how it’s done.”
• The score is genuinely good. Angelo Badalamenti — yes, the Twin Peaks composer — wrote the music, and it’s one of the few elements nobody makes fun of. Even a sinking ship can have a great band.
• It’s dedicated to Johnny Ramone. Cage dedicated the film to his friend, the Ramones guitarist, who died in 2004. Somewhere out there, Johnny is watching the bee scene and laughing.
• Critics called it “unintentionally funny.” Rotten Tomatoes’ consensus uses those exact words. 15% on Rotten Tomatoes, 36 on Metacritic, 3.8 on IMDb. The numbers don’t lie — but the memes don’t either.
• There’s an alternate ending. The unrated DVD includes a different cut — the theatrical version ends with the wicker man’s burning head falling off, skipping the “6 months later” epilogue. Collectors, take note.

Harper’s Extras

So you’ve survived the bees. Where to next, horror lover? The good stuff awaits:

• The Wicker Man (1973) — the original, and one of the greatest folk horror films ever made. Patient, eerie, devastating. Watch this to see what the remake was trying to be.
• Mandy (2018) — the good Cage freakout. Unhinged, yes — but every wild choice serves the movie. This is what happens when the madness has a director holding the leash.
• Color Out of Space (2019) — more Cage, more cosmic horror, and this time it actually works. Proof the man still has it when the material meets him halfway.
• Midsommar (2019) — folk horror done right, with actual dread, actual themes, and a maypole sequence that earns its flowers.
• The Witch (2015) — slow-burn pagan dread that understands what LaBute forgot: the scariest rituals are the ones that feel real.
• Dig deeper: read up on the great Ellen Burstyn in our horror wiki — a legend who deserved better than this script — and if you want to see what a five-skull Harper review looks like, my Halloween (1978) review is the gold standard. No bees. Promise.

Watch the Trailer

Where to Watch

As of October 2026, The Wicker Man (2006) is streaming free with ads on YouTube Free in the US. It’s also available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. Streaming lineups shuffle constantly, so check JustWatch for the latest options in your region. Bring friends. Practice your bee scream.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is The Wicker Man (2006) a remake?

Yes — it’s a remake and reimagining of the 1973 British folk horror classic The Wicker Man, directed by Robin Hardy. It also draws loosely from David Pinner’s 1967 novel Ritual. The remake moves the setting from Scotland to a fictional island off the Washington coast and swaps the original’s male-dominated pagan society for a matriarchal one.

Why does Nicolas Cage yell “not the bees”?

In the film’s climax, Edward Malus is restrained and fitted with a metal helmet into which the islanders pour live bees — exploiting his established bee allergy. Cage’s full-throated “No! Not the bees! NOT THE BEES! AAAAAAAH!” became one of the most quoted and memed line readings in movie history.

Is The Wicker Man (2006) really that bad?

As a horror film? Yes — it’s tonally confused, dramatically inert, and dramatically inferior to the 1973 original. As an entertainment experience? It’s a genuine cult classic of unintentional comedy. The Razzie nominations, the memes, the quote-along screenings — this is a movie people love to watch, just not for the reasons its makers intended.

Where can I watch The Wicker Man (2006)?

As of October 2026, it streams free with ads on YouTube Free in the US, and is available to rent or buy on Amazon Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home. Check JustWatch for current availability in your region.

One full skull for the unintentional comedy. Half a skull for Angelo Badalamenti’s score and Ellen Burstyn trying her damnedest. The rest went up in flames with the budget. The Wicker Man (2006) is a terrible horror movie and an essential bad-movie night — just don’t mistake one for the other. NOT THE BEES, horror lover. Never the bees.