The Wickerman

The film follows Sgt. Howie, who travels to the small isolated Scottish island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. Howie, who is a Christian himself, encounters the islanders' cult-like practices with strong erotic undertones and soon gets the feeling that everyone is hiding something from him. What has happened to the girl, and what will happen to Howie?

In this murder mystery without an individual murderer, we, along with the Christian Howie, are confused, curious, and frightened because we are fundamentally unable to understand the island's culture and the actions of its inhabitants. We miss the security of the traditional thriller's central murderer figure: the individual who shocks us by violating Christian moral values.

On Summerisle, we are instead caught in a pagan universe with its own rules, which are incomprehensible to us, where the actions are frightening precisely because no one questions their moral legitimacy. And what is more frightening than collective evil without individual conscience?