"For believing what you do, we confer upon you a rare gift these days -- a martyr's death."

Spring has returned to the northern hemisphere. It's time to do some gardening. It may sound like a chore, but I think once you get out in the sun, get down on your knees and get your hands dirty, you'll find yourself reconnected with nature, your spirit invigorated.

Spirit schmirit, though, right? A bond with the earth is nice and all, but if you're going to put in the time not watching horror movies, you want a bountiful harvest, so I'll give you quick and easy tip.

To ensure your labors bear fruit, all you'll need is some good dirt, good seed and a ritual human sacrifice. Not only will your sacrifice curry favor with the Old Gods, but the nitrogen content in the blood will do wonders for the soil. After you've dispensed with the busy work, you just watch and wait.

Or you can go back inside and watch a movie, and I found one that is perfect for the occasion. It's so good Christopher Lee took the gig for free.

This week's Thursday Thriller is The Wicker Man.

I'm not talking about the 2006 remake with Nicolas Cage. I'm talking about the real one from 1973, the murder mystery directed by Robin Hardy.

Edward Woodward plays Sgt. Howie, a police officer and devout Catholic, who flies to the remote island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a little girl named Rowan Morrison. He gets no help from the locals, not even the child's alleged mother, so he rents a room at the local inn for the night. There he meets the landlord's daughter Willow (Britt Ekland) about whom the bar's patrons sing boistrous, dirty songs and the landlord (Lindsay Kemp) is just fruity enough to be OK with it. After dinner Sgt. Howie takes a walk out to the cemetery where he sees multiple people having sex and a crying nude woman with her legs wrapped around a tombstone. He decides then to go up to his room to sleep, but a naked Willow in the next room keeps him awake by singing him a song of seduction, slapping out a beat on the walls and her own ass.

The next morning Howie visits the schoolhouse, and overhears the lesson about the ritual of the Maypole and its importance as a phallic symbol. If he's not upset enough to discover that he's in the midst of a bunch of penis-worshipers, he figures out they lied when they said Rowan was never in the class. He later finds the child's grave, and has to go see Lord Summerisle (Lee) the island's spiritual leader and justice of the peace for permission to exhume Rowan's body to find out what happened to her. Howie's conversation with Summerisle leads him to the conclusion that the whole island is full of religious nuts who are in on a conspiracy to cover up Rowan's murder.

But really, who's a religious nut? Howie turns livid at the sight of any woman expressing her sexuality, and, as Summerisle points out, believes in the divinity of a man born to a woman who was impregnated by a ghost. Howie tries to leave the island to get reinforcements, only to find his plane has been sabotaged. It's then that he notices the townsfolk are starting to watch him through animal masks. He's stuck on the island for the impending pagan orgy that is May Day, and determined to catch Rowan's killer, even if he has to do it by himself.

This is a weird movie. It's good. It's not really a horror movie so much as a psychological thriller with upbeat musical numbers, clashes of faith, and a parade in which Lee dresses like Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Way better than watching plants grow, The Wicker Man streams on Shudder.