I wasn't familiar with the announcement board until just recently, Cassandra Blair -- so I wonder what
I may have missed out on this past year ...
If "Eye of the Devil" airs again, I'll post a notice (and try to remember you in particular!)
But I have been watching the TV listings for at least two years and this is the first it has aired in that time that I know of.
You're right -- many of the elements I mention are "stock" elements of the dark old house genre, so DC & Co. didn't necessarily borrow from this movie -- except for the final scene, which is too similar to the ending of "Night of Dark Shadows" to be coincidence. While such borrowings and influences are often subconscious on the part of a writer, "Eye of the Devil" came out in 1967, which wasn't many years before "Night of Dark Shadows."
The novel on which it was based, "Day of the Arrow," was published in 1964, so I feel sure that "The Wicker Man" owes a major debt to it (either the novel or the movie). (A blatant lifting was the brief image of an "all-seeing" eye.)
One other motif in common with DS was hypnotism -- there was an undercurrent of trancelike states in the movie, as well as narcotic-induced states from belladonna ...
If anyone reading this is more "pagan literate" than I am, I'd be curious to know if the ritual of this movie was based on anything historically accurate. It involved 12 men dancing around a 13th man in the center of the circle -- the one who was marked for sacrifice.
I'm surprised by the rather lukewarm ratings many people (on the Internet) seem to give this film, but I also take exception to many of their comments. For example, one reviewer says that "Satanism" and vineyards (the movie is set in the Bordeaux region of France) don't mix. First off, the movie is NOT about Satanism, but paganism -- but even if it were, who's to say "they don't mix"? Others criticize the film for having too much dialogue -- it's true, this is a movie that demands one's careful attention both visually and aurally ...
I would recommend it to those who liked "The Innocents."