Robin Hardy, the British director of cult film The Wicker Man, died Friday, the BBC confirmed. He was 86 years old. 

The 1973 film he wrote and directed starred Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Ingrid Pitt and more. It was his first feature. The horror thriller tells the story of a police sergeant looking for a missing girl in a strange Scottish village. 

His next film, which he also wrote, was the 1986 thriller The Fantasist. He also made a companion piece to The Wicker Man in 2011 based on his book Cowboys for Christ, titled The Wicker Tree. He intended for the Wickerseries to be a trilogy of sorts, he told theGuardian in 2007.

The original film also inspired a 2006 remake starring Nicolas Cage, though it's widely regarded as a critical failure. 

Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), paid tribute to Hardy on Twitter today, calling Wicker Man a "hugely influential" piece of work. 

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