SPOILERS to follow
SkyPilot:Rizzo, the funny thing is that the 88 min. version is the superior cut! I watched the 100 min. director's cut, and those 12 minutes changed the film considerably for the worse. It's not just a simple matter of being too long, because the 88 min. edit reshuffles a few scenes. The guy who did the shorter edit exercised a fair amount of creativity to make the film more mysterious, and make the protagonist Sgt. Howie more sympathetic.
I'm not totally surprised you figured out the end, but for me even after I guessed his fate, it was still terrifying. The movie is like a superlative episode of The Twilight Zone or Tales From the Crypt -- the classic setup of "I swear everyone else here is crazy, but they think I'm the fool."
Of course Sgt. Howie isn't perfect. He's blind to how proud and judgmental he is, but even if he was the nicest guy the world, the island was still dead set on killing him! That's another part of what gets under my skin. And the fact that a little girl was part of the murder plot.
So you found the movie aggravating? What about it?
Well I'm glad to hear I saw the superior cut.
I was still terrified after I figured out that he was the one they were going to sacrifice. I didn't know he would get burned alive though. And the figure they put him in was just real creepy.
It aggrivates me for the same reasons you say it "gets under your skin". What do you mean exactly when you say it get under your skin? Is that a pleasant feeling or not?
Maybe it's hard for me to believe that a group of people who had never sacrificed another human being before (even if they had sacrified animals) would be so willing to do it. And take so much pleasure in doing it! And at the same time it's not that hard for me to believe, and the fact that I can almost believe it makes me feel even more sick.