If they can't fire him, that'd work.
I noticed in Christopher Lee's obituary, he played the role of the pagan nobleman in the 1970s movie "The Wicker Man." It was about a pagan religion that had survived in a remore part of the UK, and they ended about burning the police detective sent to investigate them, in their annual human sacrifice.
Very scary movie.
Sounds like it.
There was an episode of Torchwood called Countrycide or similar that was big on the creep factor too.
If I recall Joseph Campbell's book, A Hero with a Thousand Faces, the sacrifice of a virgin was common in pagan religions.
Woodward actually played the Christian martyr.
Weird because in Breaker Morant, another film by Woodward, his death at the end of the film was as a atheist.
Both films shocking in their ending.