From a picture of Edward Woodward with the Hand Of Glory in one of Alan Frank's horror film books around the late 70s/very early 80s. I then kept an eye out for it and watched the next BBC screening and fell in love with it.

wicker's world
 

must have seen it when i was about twelve on tv, i did'nt know what the hell was going on but i was hooked :nod:

I've just remembered exactly what it was that drew me to The Wicker Man. I was at uni in the Waterstones and there was a rack of magazines by the door, amongst which was one with the 'Here's Johnny' still from The Shining on the front cover and, inside the front cover was an advertisement for the DVD of The Exorcist: The Version You've Never Seen.

After paying £4.99 for this collector's edition of The Greatest Horror Movies Ever: the Definitive Guide by Empire, I read through it several times and, aside from the section on the supernatural which featured The Exorcist, I was fascinated by the Nightmare Movies chapter which featured a burning wooden effigy of a man and, after reading about The Wicker Man, I was desperate to see it and put it at the top of the 'shopping list' I compiled whilst reading the guide.

Along with numerous other films I bought because of it, my love affair with the film hasn't gone away.

My grandparents always babysat for me on Saturday nights whilst my parents went out up to the age of 12 and i always used to watch the BBC double bill of horror, usually consisting of a classic Universal monster movie followed by a Hammer or other gothic chiller.

I probably watched it at this time, i remember it scared the life out of me, more so than Alien or Scanners or the other so called "cool" films at the time.

It became one of THE films to collect when i first became fascinated by gothic horror on video and my love for the genre has stayed with me ever since.

If it came to the crunch and i had to lose most of my collection, then forget Arrow, Shameless mean nothing, Code Red are unimportant. The Devil Rides Out, Blood on Satan's Claw, The Wicker Man and their ilk are the ones that stay.

empire
 

That's one of my fave horror mags got it when it came out ,seen pretty much all films in there apart from the keep

I'd need to check, but I think I've seen every film in the magazine now. It's a great guide which is really well written and with some great selections. It should probably go in the Horror Reference Books thread!

Yeah! Got that in my wardrobe somewhere. Think I was already aware of most of the films included when I bought it, but I know it got me to seek out Carnival of Souls. It also has a full-page photo of Linda Blair in full Exorcist make-up that always freaked me out when I turned the page :happy: . . .

Weird, I was just about to post an almost identical post.:)

Go for it .

I still have that magazine-they only gave it four stars I'm sure-the bloody cheek! :pound: