I have a confession to make. I don’t always read reviews of my books. I’m always a little scared, even though they made it through the review process and were accepted for publication, there will be those who don’t like them. I’ve only seen three full reviews of Nightmares with the Bible and two of them were negative. Eventually, however, I generally come around to taking a look. Yesterday I found the first review of The Wicker Man on FilmJuice. It took some time before I could settle down to read it, and to my great relief it was a positive review. You see, I knew I was taking a chance by writing this book because I was approaching the movie from an unexpected angle. That often makes fans uncomfortable. I’m glad that at least one reader found it worth his time. (By the way, I tried to leave a thank you but WordPress, ironically, wouldn’t let me log in—hey guys, I’ve been blogging here for 14 years!)
I’ve watched horror movies since I was a kid. I started writing about them in 2009, back when I started this blog. It was tentative at first, being trained as a religion scholar as I was. I think many of my early readers didn’t know what to make of it when I wrote about horror—wasn’t this a blog about religion? Well, actually it’s a blog in the old sense of the word, a log. Ship logs and diaries both depend on what’s going on at the time. I still work with religion for a job, but I rely on horror films to help me make sense of life. Since I watch them, I write about them. Holy Horror was a bit of an experiment for me. It didn’t exactly become a best seller, but it brought me into the conversation.
Holy Horror was the first book where I discussed The Wicker Man. I’d discussed it many times on this blog, of course, but having a book published means that somebody’s invested in your thoughts, or at least thinks they can make a buck or two from them. (This blog is entirely non-profit.) I knew the Devil’s Advocates series was lacking a volume on The Wicker Man so I asked the series editor if he’d be interested in a new angle. That set the direction for the next couple years of my life. Despite my skittishness, I’m delighted to have a positive review on my reading of the film. If negative reviews come (and they likely will) I’ll at least have the satisfaction of knowing one reader gets what I’m trying to do here. And I confess that it feels good.