Fellwanderer

I didn't know that was how to spell ruined!

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

Pye

i've not heard a fellow fan ever say this, so is it just me that thinks the short version is miles better? The only thing i'd add to it is the gently johnny song though not the dire dialogue that follows. Scenes like the opening on the mainland seem so unnecessary and wooden.

DB7

I'd agree. Sometimes these extended directors cut just extend the tedium and appear a cynical piece of marketing. (don't they messrs Stone, Scott and Coppola)

I've the Wicker Man version with the additional scenes but the sound and picture quality is so poor they upset the flow of the film.

Windthrop

Sometimes producers have better judgement than directors - I agree the directors 'cut' is not automatically superior. This in my opinionis very pertinent nowadays when, I feel, so many films have too much 'padding' and could benefit from trimming not extending.

knobbykins

BLASPHEMY!!!!
Nail 'em up,i say.Nail some sense into 'em!
As soon as i find my shotgun and an angry mob i'll be round for a little chat.HHHRRRUUUMMMPPPHHH!!!!

When the king's off his arse nobody sleeps!

BruIrn

I can't say that the longer version adds anything special to the film. For me the shortened version works just fine. I think it's a brilliant film but one thing that didn't impress me much was Christopher Lee's performance, despite his claims that it's his best ever. If anything it was in danger of actually detracting from the overall creepy ambience, which the rest of the cast supply in bucketloads as well. Edward Woodward is also immense.

I can't wait to see it at the big screen in a week and half's time. I just wonder if the digitalisation will have improved the picture quality of the added scenes at all.

D Cairns

Isn't there some highly inappropriate wah-wah guitar music that sneaks into the shorter version? Other than that, it's tighter and probably better.

knobbykins

Blimey,looks like i gonna have to get more ammo.

When the king's off his arse nobody sleeps!

Pye

totally agree about lee though i think he means the best part more than best performance perhaps? It puzzles me though why the short version has a scene not in the long one, of willow the morning after her dance remarking on howie's resisting her.

christoph404

One of my favourite films from the seventies and yes I have always prefered the shorter theatrical release version, I thought I was the only one! I think the shorter version is tighter and the way Howie's character is revealed through some flashbacks is much more effective than spoon feeding us all that stuff at the beginning which is on the longer "directors" cut. I actually quite like Lee's performance in the film, I guess you could either find his get up as a daame with long black wig silly or scary, I think its quite creepy, he does convey an ominous tone in the part, obviously mad and beyond normal reasoning which is equally disturbing!

Pye

Spot on about the spoon feeding of Howie's Christianity in the long version. That begins like an episode of Z Cars, that awful ncar scene, John Hallam's terrible performance, wooden dialogue about rape and sacrilege, and no sooner has the film started thna we're in a really dull church scene. It's, I think, a dire opening.

I think Lee is pretty good in it but no more than usual.

What baffles me is his comment on the DVD commentary at the end about how he never can answer fans questions about how much Summerisle himself believes in the sacrifice. Surely he doesn't at all, since he has spent a long scene explaining to Howie how his grandfather reintroduced the religion as a way of appeasing the islanders. Can't imagine someone who can confess to such a contrivance then being a devoted follower of it.