THE WICKER TREE:
Successful pop singer Beth Boothby (played by Brittania Nicol) has turned away from the sinful life she was living and become a famous gospel singer. Along with her boyfriend Steve (played by Henry Garrett) the two travel overseas to Scotland to spread to word of Christ. When they are shunned by the people of Glasgow the couple meet Sir Lachlan Morrison (played by Graham McTavish), who asks them to come to the small town of Tressock to spread their word to people who will accept them regardless of their beliefs. This turns out to be exactly what the two are looking for and once in the town they find that it’s seems to be perfect. That’s when the truth begins to appear and what was once them showing the town the way of the Lord becomes the town putting temptation to the young couple who are trying to remain pure in a world of sin.

UH WHAT:
The Wicker Tree is billed as horror; it even starts off really gruesome with gore and the guts of something being shown on a saw blade. When I saw that opening scene it was at the exact moment I was about to eat a piece of sausage, and yes I put it down and didn’t get to eat, for about 10 minutes. What started off looking like a movie that was going to be one of these typical gore movies showing as much blood and gore possible and calling it a horror movie quickly turned into nothing of the sort. This movie is a horror movie as much as heavy metal music is classical music.

I don’t know where the horror comes into play in The Wicker Tree, even when the end finally rolls around where some action happens that might be considered horror. Here’s the plot, a young couple who has turn to God are in love, they have made a pact not to have sex, and to follow the word of God. Turns out the girl used to be a dirty pop singer, this is shown in a past video of a song of hers that basically has her saying give me a drink and I’ll have sex with you, but now she’s this pure girl who only wants to tell others about God but she remains famous and popular. Going to Scotland the couple ends up in a small town that is treating them nice but secretly plotting their end. This stupid, slow moving plot takes the whole movie to tell and then when the action happens at the end, I was so distanced from the movie that I just didn’t care. Even when I finally was shown what these people had in store for the couple I was just didn’t care.

There is potential to this movie, it has a chance to be a good psychological horror flick, not one of those gore fests, but one that would really make the viewer think and scare them. If this was done right by speeding up the plot points where the characters are finding out what is about to happen to them within the 30 minutes of the movie then having to survive the next 40 minutes, coupled with the ending it has, I would have loved The Wicker Tree. Instead I got a movie that has such a slow pace that after 10 minutes it felt like I had been watching for a half hour, there’s no action happening, there’s no thrills, no scares, and the acting does nothing to make me believe that these two people are as devoted as they say.

SPREADING THE WORD ON BLU RAY:
This being on Blu Ray was about the only good aspect to the movie. The picture quality is clear, it’s sharp, with audio levels that was clear enough to let me know that I couldn’t understand what the actress Honeysuckle Weeks was saying during one scene. While watching this I was looking for parts in this that would make for a good statement to give on how bad or good the Blu Ray looks but it took the special features to let me realize how clear the picture is on this Blu Ray. Watching the deleted scenes shows how some editing and color correcting while getting the upgrade to Blu Ray can take a picture from this old, cloudy, almost out of focus look and make it look sharp and clear. However, the deleted scenes themselves were about as interesting as a paper bag.