"They do things differently on Summerisle."

The Wicker Man, as author Allan Brown makes clear in this welcome book, is highly personal. I first came across it in Alan Frank's The Treasury of Horror Movies (1974) but remained largely ignorant of its power until Danny Peary's excellent Cult Movies 2 in 1984. Appetite suitably whetted, I caught the all too abbreviated (84 minute) picture itself in a rare late night TV outing. Since when I, like many, have lived with the gnawing knowledge that the elements that made up the legendary complete cut had vanished (accidentally or otherwise) like so many East End faces into the M3 landfill.

And then something extraordinary happened: BBC2's Moviedrome strand stepped up to bat with an extra 10 minutes; scratched, battered, but indisputedly there. The Wicker Man had grown a few feet taller. We comforted ourselves that, even if this wasn't the Holy Grail, then at least we knew what the damn thing looked like.

And now what do they tell us? Only that the full-length ('Director's') cut was out there all along. That a print of Robin Hardy's approved version not only existed but had been extensively seen on video in the States. A version that has only recently been seen on FilmFour over here.

Cock-up or conspiracy? In talking to the film's star, Christopher Lee, Brown unearths the latter: Lee is convinced someone is suppressing his masterpiece for reasons unspecified. Most others - including writer Anthony Shaffer and director Hardy - beg to differ. Execs not attuned to the picture's unique sensibility ordered it butchered, to play second fiddle to Roeg's magisterial Don't Look Now. Landfill? A genuine mistake.

Brown's book is exhaustive - from the picture's making, leap-frogging rights and disappearing prints (Martin Scorsese's pristine 35mm one has mysteriously vanished), to its drive-in ignominy in America's Deep South. Most of the principals speak - Britt Ekland for the first time (she claims to have never seen the film) - and the picture's enduring myth is bolstered by some pleasingly argumentative stuff: bickering between writer and director; between Hardy and designer Seamus Flannery over the design of the sacrificial idol itself; between the press and, bizarrely, Hardy's direction; and between Edward Woodward's memory and the real world.

It's not all plain sailing though. Brown's fannishness occasionally obscures his scholarship and several anecdotes are laboriously repeated. Tighter editing - and dropping the clumsy subtitle - would have helped. That said, his dedication to detail is admirable.

What we want, of course, is the definitive Wicker Man. A bells and whistles DVD, fully restored and documented before it's too late. From a flyover somewhere near Shepperton to primetime digital majesty. And never rule it out - like many a cheesy horror movie villain, however much dismembered, burnt and buried, The Wicker Man has an uncanny way of refusing to die.