The remake opens in the UK tomorrow (and has a very good UK poster, a full-colour variation on the original quad) but despite full-page colour ads and being on the side of every bus in the country, they haven't screened it for the critics. The last two films this happened for over here were Snakes On a Plane and The Avengers.

I am just filled with confidence by that move...

...and no critic screenings here, either!

I still can't get over how much they're trying to market it as a ghost story in the U.S. Are the British trailers the same?

At least SNAKES ON A PLANE was legitimately entertaining, and wasn't screened mainly because New Line thought it was a typical "horror" teen flick and wouldn't need the benefit of reviews in its weekend in-take (as it turns out, a lot of critics enjoyed it, so it couldn't have hurt).

This one smacks of the Labor Day dumping grounds, no doubt!

I haven't seen the US trailer, but it's being sold as a straight remake here. The posters don't feature any of the cast, just the burning wicker man: they seem to be going on the assumption that since we Brits don't think it's broke that we'll buy that they haven't "fixed" it. Although we all suspect that they have fixed it the way that vets fix cats and dogs...

I did see one review that states Cage beats the stuffing out of Leelee Sobieski.

I suppose that's good enough for a rental, lol...

Whatever happened to Sobieski? She was cute in Eyes Wide Shut, but everything she's done since she's been terrible in. Is she just one of those actresses who needs a Kubrickian 67 takes to get it right?

To put the no-reviews thing into perspective, it simply doesn't happen over here. In the UK it's a bigger problem getting critics to see the films than to keep them away. When The Avengers didn't do previews, the reaction from the press was catastrophic - for a whole year every Warners picture got bad press from the tabloids as payback and no-one ever tried to pull that stunt again until Snakes came out. Hell, they even had press shows for Little Man over here!

Still, some papers are reviewing the fact that there are no previews and warning readers to stay away.

Well, apart from one of the sunday papers which reviewed it (2/5), the only reviews I've seen so far are on internet sites, and they are dreadful. It's running at 3.7/10 on the IMDB at the moment, and it's not just fans of the original who want to burn LaBute alive in a giant wicker man.

This movie is hilarious! Funnier than most actual comedies; in one scene, Nicholas Cage actually dons a bear suit to disguise himself . . . and I swear, I'm not making that up.

The Queen of the Geeks wrote:This movie is hilarious! Funnier than most actual comedies; in one scene, Nicholas Cage actually dons a bear suit to disguise himself . . . and I swear, I'm not making that up.

Now THAT sounds funny. The last bear suit I saw was Connery donning one in THE AVENGERS (err, was that a BUNNY suit??). Either way it's close enough -- another end-of-summer Warner-released flop du jour!

Let's be fair - in the original it's an important plot point that Edward Woodward wears a fancy dress Fool's costume. Of course, he was never as big a prat as Nicolas Cage...

And yes, indeed it was a bear suit that Sean Connery's double donned in The Avengers. A teddy bear suit, to be precise. Yellow, I think...