Justin was always conflicted over the exalted claims made for the film: for him, The Wicker Man destroyed his family. His brother Dominic has been more distanced.

The Wicker Man is a set of fragmented stories: benighted production, brutal editing, critical reception, financial failure, and later revival. Using the newly uncovered sources, the brothers investigate what Robin Hardy’s creative contribution to The Wicker Man was and consider who was truly sacrificed. They reveal an unlikely heroine: Justin’s mother, who bankrupted herself paying loans to her husband and the film, only for him to leave when it flopped. The brothers agree she should be justly regarded as executive producer of the film she never knew was a success.

For all women behind artist husbands, this book reveals a series of heroines: the mothers of the children of The Wicker Man.

A personal, inside look at the madness behind the making of The Wicker Man – from its inception, to it becoming a cult favourite

Dominic Hardy is a visual artist and art historian, specializing in the history of visual satire, who teaches at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Justin Hardy is an award-winning historian filmmaker for the BBC, Channel 4, CNN and ARTE. He directed Christopher Lee in A Feast at Midnight (1994), and Iain Glen/Ian McDiarmid in City of Vice (2009).