The Wicker Man comes from a long tradition of tricksy, terrifying, blackly comic horrors that terrified and unsettled a timid little Britain in the early 70s. There are some corkers in this period. Ken Russell’s gruelling The Devils, the hilarious Theatre of Blood starring Vincent Price, and Piers Haggard’s Blood on Satan’s Claw which joins Witchfinder General, The Devil Rides Out and The Wicker Man itself in a tiny little sub-genre of four called Folk Horror, a place where ancient pagan traditions make a cruel mockery of Christianity.