Robin Hardy's sons, Justin and Dominic, have completed their father's trilogy with the film 'Wrath of the Gods'. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
Robin Hardy always envisaged his iconic 1973 folk horror film The Wicker Man as the first part of a trilogy. The Wicker Tree, released in 2011, brought him closer to that ambition, but his death in 2016 at the age of 86 left the project incomplete.
Now his sons, Justin and Dominic, have been able to complete their father's trilogy, after finding a script for the final film. Wrath of the Gods had its premiere at the FrightFest horror festival in London on Friday, a family dream made possible thanks to the surprise discovery of some long-lost family archive.
"The person who bought Justin's old family home said they'd discovered six sacks of letters, scripts and other material pertaining to Robin Hardy and The Wicker Man in the attic," says Dominic, an art historian at the University of Quebec in Montreal. "Justin's first instinct was to burn them, but we couldn't ignore this original source material. Although we left it unopened for six months or more."
The archive haul included papers, scripts and storyboards, but it also shed light on the long shadow cast by The Wicker Man. The film holds a unique place in British cinema history. It was shot at a time when the UK industry was in crisis. Its financial backers were struggling and its stars - including horror legend Christopher Lee - had to go without being paid to get it finished.
It was set on a Hebridean island in spring but was shot in Galloway in the autumn and early winter. On its release, it was largely buried as a second feature. There were competing edits and tales of missing material, some of which was said to be literally buried in the supporting columns of a motorway.
But the film's reputation grew. Lee considered it one of his finest films, featuring one of his finest performances. Its off-kilter tone and genuinely disturbing climax made it a favourite for horror fans. By the time the BBC launched the cult cinema series Moviedrome in 1988, there was only one choice for opening night - the premiere of a previously unseen edit of The Wicker Man.
The film's troubled production was mirrored by the troubles it brought Robin Hardy and his family. It bankrupted the director, and he abandoned Justin's mother Caroline, leaving her with all his debts. He went on to marry four more times, and had eight children in all.
Justin and Dominic talk about their complicated relationship with the film in the 2024 book and documentary Children Of The Wicker Man. The recently unearthed archive included a script for that proposed third and final film, Wrath of the Gods, as well as details of how their father had come up with the idea.
"He had had been in an airplane and had a turn because his heart medication wasn't working," says Dominic. "He had to land in Reykjavik and spend a week recuperating, and he came back with this idea of a theme park around an extinct volcano in Iceland where the Norse gods get upset and mayhem ensues. And then he decided it ought to be set in Shetland because of the other parts of the trilogy."
Justin, an Emmy and BAFTA-nominated director, worked on the idea with Dominic. They came up with their own original story, in which a young grieving widow returns to the island of Hel to bury her late husband after his suicide. She's cast out by the community, who look on her as a symbol of evil and bad luck. When children start going missing, the island is forced to confront its own complex history.
Filming began in Shetland in the spring of 2025.