Many fans of Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973) may know that this classic is considered a fine sample of folk horror. Holiday horror draws its energy from the featured festive day, here May Day. Wiggins delineates what holiday horror is and surveys various aspects of "the Citizen Kane of horror movies" that utilize the holiday.
Without May Day, The Wicker Man would never have been lit. Anthony Shaffer and Robin Hardy researched and designed a textbook example of holiday horror. Based on the clash of an outsider policeman's Christianity and a thriving Celtic celebration of Beltane, this film explores the dangers of religion.