Sleepy Hollow

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2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast »
Sleepy Hollow

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Sleepy Hollow remains a solid Tim Burton film – and his first foray into real horror. While it boasts a star-studded cast (Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Christopher Lee, Jeffrey Jones, and practically the entire cast of the Harry Potter series), we note that the passage of time has not remained kind to this one. What is wrong with it? Nothing, actually. It’s just … well, not what we expected, and not as fond as we remembered it.

Nevertheless, the classic tale of Ichabod Crane and The Headless Horseman is utterly PERFECT for conjuring up those Halloween vibes. Let’s take a deep dive into this as we get into the spirit of the season.

And if you’re a Patron of the show, you’ll also get access to our companion minisode, where we discuss the Disney animated version of the original Washington Irving tale upon which this movie is (loosely) based. Wander on over to our Patreon page and consider joining the crew for a discussion of both the cartoon AND the short story, as well as nearly 50 minisodes and other goodies exclusively for our Patrons!

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Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Episode 412, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw

Todd: Hello and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: We are knee, knee deep in the holiday season. Knee deep in the graveyard, as you might say. Knee. Where do I come up with this shit? I mean, I probably wouldn’t. Some people might say it. I don’t know. Maybe I said it for the first time and it’ll become a thing.

It’s cute. I like it. I once came up with a saying that I was spreading around and hoping that would spread so that by the time I saw it in a movie, I could tell everybody it actually came from me. I don’t think you should say it. Are you saying that because I’m scared. Oh yeah, it’s a fantastic one. I thought, like, what is something that people always say, like, Oh, that really ticks me off.

That really ticks me off or I’m really pissed or something like that. I thought, That really yanks my loins. Damn it, that yanks my loins. Pretty good, huh? I mean, that’s pretty good. It’s unique enough that if I heard it in a movie, I would know it only came from me. But I thought it was catchy. Thank you.

Okay. If any I’ll I’ll keep

Craig: my

Todd: ears out. My cousins in Illinois, when I was in high school, I think when they were in high school, so that was, this was many years ago, claimed that they, once I told them this, they started using it at school and they said everyone at school saying it, was saying it at some point.

So I had high hopes. But I have yet to see it in a movie, so, uh, that remains. Don’t give up. I won’t. Maybe, you know, once this spreads to both of our listeners, they can also go off and do the thing. I’ve still got lots of life to live. I think it’s got legs, man. Yanks my loins. That really yanks my loins.

Hello, welcome to Two Guys in a Chainsaw. Hope we don’t yank your loins today.

Craig: You know what really yanks my loins? Yeah!

It works, doesn’t it? Get

Todd: on

Craig: with it. It works, okay. It’s, it’s, it’s something.

Todd: We were looking for a wide variety of Halloween stuff to do, and it seemed like the list that I came up with was getting a little skewed towards, like, children, kind of kidsy movies, and I thought, you know what, that’s kind of fine.

So why don’t we go ahead and throw this mainstream movie in that I remember from 1999 called Sleepy Hollow. Starred Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, was directed by Tim Burton. I remembered it as being fun and fairly light. You know, as far as horror movies go, that it wasn’t really so scary. It was just full of atmosphere and pretty much suitable for your older, younger set.

So when we went back to watch it this time around, which I hadn’t seen since it came out, I was pretty shocked at how gory it was. I was really surprised, and so I’m kind of happy that we sat down to do this one this season because I was really happy to revisit it, there was a lot I’d forgotten about it, and it is maybe the most horror of a Tim Burton movie that Tim Burton’s ever done.

Oh yeah. And, and that’s odd because you think of Tim Burton as being the spooky guy, but in actuality, he really hasn’t done much of what you would consider horror, and I think this might be horror. At the top of the list. He certainly took the project because he, he hadn’t done a horror movie yet, which is odd because horror movies were his favorite movies growing up.

He was a hammer horror fan. He was a Vincent Price nut, you know, and, and, and all that. And it really kind of inspired. the direction you decide to take things, so. It was fun revisiting it, but uh, this is the first time I’d seen it since it came out. I’m not sure if I’d seen it in the theater or rented it, probably 50 50 one or the other, but yeah, I had a good time.

How about you? What was your history with this movie?

Craig: I, I, I don’t know. I’ve been trying to think. My memory is so bad, so I’ll tell you what I think I remember, but I may be just totally making it up. I think that I remember being really excited about this. Like when the trailers came out, because I really liked Tim Burton, you know, especially up to this point, I’d really liked the stuff that he had done.

And up to this point, I liked Johnny Depp. And I really like this story. Like, this is one of my favorite Halloween stories. When we were growing up, the Disney version? Yes. The animated one would play annually on television? Young people today just don’t know. You just don’t know. You know? Young

Todd: people today, they just don’t get it.

Craig: There were these great things, like these holiday specials, or just movies that they would play yearly, usually around some holiday. Like, The Sound of Music, or Wizard of Oz, or something like that. And that would be for many of us, the only access you had to that. So when it came up. Every year. It was so exciting every year at Halloween.

I was so excited to get to watch the sleepy hollow cartoon. It was so cute. So I was super excited about this movie. And I think that I remember being disappointed. I’m not sure why. Well, I think I know. Watching this again, I still wasn’t super into it and I was telling Alan like, I don’t know what I’m gonna say because there’s nothing wrong with this movie.

Like, it should hit on every level and just for some reason it just doesn’t for me and I can’t figure it out. Maybe we can suss it out as, as we talk. I don’t know.

Todd: We might be able to. I, I don’t know. I, I, like you, uh, loved that Disney, what, it was my first introduction to the story and it’s a very compelling story.

Craig: It’s super, super faithful to the, to the text. Oh, it is. To the Washington, yeah, the Washington Irving text. Now the Washington Irving text, I’ve tried to teach that several times and kids are just not into it. And I get it. Yeah. Because it’s long and it’s kind of boring. Well,

Todd: it’s, it’s all narration.

There’s no, you know, it’s like a story told by a, you Heard from a guy, heard from a guy, you know, and it’s kind of done in that vein. Didn’t Washington Irving have a book that was ostensibly essays and letters from somebody else? You know, like, He just, Oh, I don’t know. It’s a good story. It is. But it’s, it’s like the tale you’d hear from some old man sitting around talking, telling you, you

Craig: know, I mean, it, it, it, it, me, it meanders.

Like it’s a lot of like local color.

Todd: It’s heavy on description. That doesn’t matter world.

Craig: Yeah. Like world building of the area and like all these like old legends. And it really is a good story. It really is. But you need, you have to be in the mood for it. It’s, it’s not like a page turner.

Todd: Yeah, it’s less like reading a novel or a short story as it is like having somebody tell you something that they heard happen once.

Yeah. While you’re sitting in a bar and the music is loud or whatever. It’s just, it’s not gonna hit the same. But I actually really like that story because I find it cozy.

Craig: Yeah, oh, it’s very cozy, sure.

Todd: You just kind of disappear into a little world for a while and I, and the language of that time, you know, the writing, Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s just so, sometimes I’m really in the mood for that. Let me just put it that way. It’s almost Me too. Yeah. I get it. It transports you back to a time you never lived in but wish you had sometimes. Anyway, yeah, we’re gonna actually do the Disney story of, uh, Ichabod Crane, the cartoon, as a minisode for our patrons.

So if you’re actually interested in hearing us talk a little bit more about the Disney movie and about the short story that inspired it, go to Patreon. com slash Chainsaw Podcast and think about signing up. It’s just five bucks a month and you get access to a whole bunch of minisodes. And the ones that we’ve already done and the ones we do in the future, lots of other goodies and things like that.

So I think I kind of know why, because I liken this a little bit to the movie Van Helsing.

Craig: Yes. Oh my God. I put that in my notes and I was super excited about that movie too. And then it was just okay. Like, and again, it should have, it’s exactly What I think I want it to be, but for some reason it’s just not.

I was curious as to whether you would be a bigger fan of this. Because I should have figured it out on my own, but I really didn’t figure it out until I started reading about it. That he did this very much in the style of Of the Hammer horror films and Mario Bava films. Now, Mario Bava films I’m not nearly as familiar with.

I know we’ve done a couple. Tell me, what are some of the ones that we’ve

Todd: done? Honestly, we have not done a Mario Bava film yet, which is Are you serious? Yeah, I’m sorry. We did one by his son. His son did Demons, and so we did that one. So we probably talked a little bit about him, and we said Bava, but it was not Mario.

Black Sunday is one of my favorite old movies, and it’s cited constantly as a inspiration for so many people who grew up watching those 60s horror movies and hammer horror movies that and finally went on to direct in themselves, and little pieces and bits of it end up in movies. We’ve seen the actress from that became very, very popular and has shown up in movies that we’ve done, including Piranha.

She was one of the mean scientists who was part of the conspiracy. So, yeah, we, we’ve talked about Black Sunday and Mario Bava a little bit, but we’ve never done it. And now I’m thinking we need to rectify that. We need to at least do Black Sunday, if nothing else, that Mario Bava has done. He is a big blind spot right now in our,

Craig: You are more familiar with all of those films than I am, but I think I may have just figured it out.

I think it’s when a brilliant filmmaker looks back at the films that they were inspired by and want to emulate it. Like, here’s my tribute to it, or I like it so much. I want to do something like it and they try to recreate it and you just can’t like it

Todd: maybe yeah

Craig: with the modern effects And it’s just different so much of what those movies are to me is style And I understand that you you can imitate style But just the visual me as the viewer looking at it the visual style.

I understand. Yes Okay, so Burton filmed most of this movie on set But it doesn’t look like it.

Todd: Not at all.

Craig: The old Hammer movies, they look like sets. I almost feel like I’m watching a play. So it’s totally different. And, and so I think it just doesn’t work. Like trying to think of other things like that.

Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows. Nobody was into

Todd: yeah,

Craig: I feel like when you try too hard to recapture something in this case I just don’t I don’t know and it’s not a bad movie. It’s not no, it’s a good

Todd: movie It just doesn’t work for me So I’m gonna be a little kinder than you on this because I do feel like he did a pretty good job of Recreating the look and the and the style of hammer films visually Again, like what you said is very true, like, updating it a little bit, because it’s just much more, it’s got a bigger budget and better teams behind it, you know, it’s more competent and stuff, so like, the sets don’t really look like sets, even though they’re still just as covered in fog and obscured and kind of small as they were, you know, when you’re doing, say, like, in, in, in one of the old Hammer Dracula movies, where you’re out in the woods and it’s just a bunch of branches and things and a lot of fog to kind of disguise the fact that you’re actually in a small confined space.

It’s hard to make a set look big, you know, when it’s, uh, inside of a, even when it’s inside, like, an airplane hangar.

Craig: And they do it brilliantly here. Like, it’s so, the whole thing is so well done. Tim Burton is a genius. Like, I just think he’s an absolute genius. I said earlier, like, Up until this point, I was a big fan of him and Johnny Depp.

I’m, I’m still a big Tim Burton fan. I feel like the stuff that he’s put out more recently doesn’t really live up to some of his earlier stuff. And Johnny Depp, I’m just over, like, I was never all that into him. And at this point I’m just over him. I don’t get it. Let’s, let’s let him go. Let’s let him go

Todd: away.

It sounds like you’re putting him to sleep.

Craig: No, he can just go and be rich quietly somewhere else. I don’t need to see him anymore.

Todd: I’m picturing you as, as an assassin coming up from behind Johnny Depp, real quick around the neck and he’s like struggling and you’re going and slowly lowering him to the ground.

That’s, that’s, uh, that’s a

Craig: very vivid imagination, but, but, but Tim Burton is Brilliant. Edward Scissorhands is one of my favorite movies of all time. And Johnny Depp is brilliant in that too. I will give him credit where it is due. So I’m not like everything is beyond adept. The cinematography is gorgeous.

Right. The directing is good. I found the pacing weird, but I was also trying to put myself in a head space where he’s going for a certain type of movie and probably these hammer films and these, these Bava films were probably paced this way. It’s just not what you’re used to. It weirded me out that the movie felt like two different movies.

It felt like there was the first movie where they’re trying to figure out who the killer is. And of course everybody knows it’s the horseman, but. Ichabod Crane Johnny Depp is a man of reason so he can’t accept that and then about halfway through the movie He sees the horseman and so then that mystery is over.

Yeah, so then they introduced a new one

Todd: So it’s like Sherlock Holmes kind of who did it sort of thing?

Craig: Yeah, which is fine. It was just ah, I don’t know Yeah. The movie’s an hour and 45 minutes long. It felt long to me.

Todd: I thought it was two and a half by the time I finished watching it. It would

Craig: never

Todd: end.

Ironically enough, I was just gonna say before you mentioned pacing, that I think that that is one thing that separates this, that makes us feel different from a Hammer Horror movie, and that is the pacing. Even though it’s a bit slow, there’s a lot. There is, it is plot heavy. Oh my god. There are so many characters, and there is so many plots, and so many twists, and so many turns, and so many details, that in that way, It feels kind of fast.

I mean, it’s not like a simple story told over a slow period of time, which is sort of how I feel like the pacing of the old Hammer Horror movies are.

Craig: Yes. Yes.

Todd: And so when you get in that, when you slip into that zone, that mental space, you know, that atmosphere Kind of all that’s left, right? So you’re just wallowing in that atmosphere and that atmosphere, I could say, kind of overtakes you and becomes overworldly and their dream sequences that fill the time and you know, there’s all this stuff.

Clip: Yeah.

Todd: It’s very different from what this is, which like you said, is a plot heavy. First it’s one movie, then it’s another movie. It’s a detective story, it’s a whodunit, there’s got a million names to try to remember and figure out. I got lost halfway through and I stopped even paying attention. I did too.

Yeah, so in that way it’s got this sort of, they’re trying to shoehorn this very simple old story into a more of a, what they feel a modern audience can handle, you know, a more modern sensibility, an updating of it if you will. So instead of Ichabod Crane being this like, school teacher. Who is quite a simple man, but is trying to kind of woo this girl and thinks he’s got a shot at it.

Ichabod Crane’s character in the short story is freaked out by ghost stories. He believes, he’s not a skeptic, he’s the opposite. Oh yeah. He believes all these ghost stories and he’s terrified of everything. To the point where even, maybe even more so than the townspeople, of this already very superstitious town.

And this guy is not that at all. No, it’s very different.

Clip: I am Constable Ichabod Crane. Sent to you from New York to investigate murder in Sleepy Hollow. Then Sleepy Hollow is grateful to you, Constable Crane. And we hope you will honor us by remaining in this house. Well spoke, dear. Well, come, sir. We’ll get you settled.

Clayon!

Todd: And the efforts to make it seem like he’s scared of things and very skittish are really inconsistent. Because on the one hand, he’s a little ill at the sight of blood and jumping up at spiders that are scurrying across the floor. And on the other hand, he’s getting blood squirted in his face by voluntarily, you know, axing at a tree that’s bleeding.

Craig: There’s so much face squirting on Donny Jepp. Like, um, Tim Burton, um, like, There’s a lot of squirting on Johnny Depp’s face. I’m just saying, you might want to tone it down.

Todd: He’s making his love for Donny Jepp a little too obvious in this one, isn’t he? And also, there’s this moment where he’s like, I’m gonna round up a posse of the most able bodied men to go in and after the Headless Horsemen.

At that point, I was just like, okay, it’s not the same story. It’s not at all. That is how I felt about Van Helsing. It was going for this old classic Universal’s monster feel. Of course, they had to update it by making a lot of computer generated effects. I can give that a pass or whatever. But Van Helsing becomes this, like, action superstar.

And the whole movie is just nothing but One action sequence to another which is completely betrays the feeling of those old films So it doesn’t feel at all like those old films and honestly when I was coming to see a movie about Van Helsing and was excited I wasn’t wanting to see Van Helsing as Indiana Jones, so it was, uh, disappointing.

And I kind of felt that way about this, too. I wasn’t coming to see Ichabod Crane as sort of like a Sherlock Holmesian man of reason who slowly becomes to believe in the supernatural, but is able to summon up the courage to have these long, drawn out action sequences where he’s leaping from a horse to a horse to a wagon train and summoning up a posse to single handedly go after, uh, This horseman deep in the dark woods.

That was disappointing.

Craig: Yeah. I, even though some guy on the internet says that I’m too negative, I’m going to, I’m going to go ahead and say it anyway, and I feel, I feel, I feel okay about saying it because Johnny Depp himself. Says he’s not watched this movie because he hates the way he acted in it. I don’t like it either.

Yeah, it’s it’s it’s not like he does anything wrong. He’s fine. I just I was trying to figure this out because I don’t care for him anymore. It’s not just about stuff that’s been about his personal life. That’s been very public. That’s not charming, but Just as an actor, people kind of swoon over him and I just feel like he’s just kind of always the same to me and I feel like whatever he’s in, when everybody else is giving 10, he’s always giving 11.

So like he’s always just a little bit over the top and compared to everybody else and it just

Todd: It throws off the balance. Scene stealing.

Craig: People are gonna disagree with me and that’s totally fine. I understand that I am in the minority here. I, he’s a huge star, he has been for years. I, I respect that. He, just not my cup of tea, that’s all.

I understand if, if you like him, I get it, it’s fine, but I don’t. Dude,

Todd: I’m with you on that, honestly. I love him in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I really do. That is one of these situations where doing the wacky character that nobody kind of like was expecting but then it turned out like it was really, it worked.

But then, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, like, it’s the same deal, he’s like, I’m gonna go because I feel like Willy Wonka would be a childlike man so I’m gonna literally try to be as childlike as possible and then over the top and it,

Craig: it sucks. Listen, I hate, I hate it. But I will at least give him credit for making a bold choice.

Todd: Well, that’s my point. He makes bold choices, and I think that is what people like about him, and that is what

Craig: And that’s fair.

Todd: And they’ll say, Oh, well, that means that he’s a great actor. I don’t know. I mean, don’t get me wrong. He’s a great actor. It’s just like, that’s kind of become his shtick.

Craig: Yeah, that’s what I feel like.

It’s It seems a little lazy at this point. I don’t know. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. He’s And like, I, I appreciate the fact that like, you know, in the story, Ichabod Crane is supposed to be like, unattractive, and he offered to wear like prosthetics and stuff to make himself more physically unappealing. And Tim Burton didn’t want to do that.

He wanted to just focus on the unappealing. Aspects of his character, which is fine because he was super annoying and a, a big baby sometimes, like you said, but then at other times, I’m going to lead the charge. Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, there’s, there’s so much, God, we, we couldn’t possibly, if we wanted to, it would take us all day to go through the whole plot, but there are so many notable things like this cast.

Yes. Is. Insane! I know,

Todd: right? I had forgotten. It’s crazy! And, especially in retros actually, not really even in retrospect, because everybody in this was, uh, famous. Famous British actors, surprisingly. At one point, Johnny does Ichabod Crane, when he comes to Sleepy Hollow, he’s Ha ha! He’s a New York detective!

He’s in a room with every famous old man you’ve ever seen. Yeah! He’s in a room I was watching this with Liz, and she said, It’s like a reunion of the cast from Harry Potter. It is. It practically is. But it’s also, to be fair, kind of a reunion of everybody Tim Burton likes to put in his movies ever. So you’ve got, uh, Jeffrey Jones from a bunch of his movies, but you know, Beetlejuice.

Father and Beetlejuice. He plays the local, um, priest guy. Then you’ve got Michael Gambon. Who is the town mayor? What do they call it? Like, the constable? No, he’s just a rich guy. Who has a lot of influence?

Craig: Yeah, he’s everybody’s friend, but also their banker. Yeah. I feel like he’s just the really rich guy who’s maybe a landlord.

Yeah, I think that’s what he is. He’s like a landlord. And

Todd: of course, he’s, Michael Gambon was famously Dumbledore after the first, uh, Dumbledore. Two? First two Harry Potter movies, or first one? I don’t remember. He’s been in a million things. He pulled, um, what’s his name out of retirement? Alfred from, uh, Batman.

Michael Goe? Yes, Michael Goe.

Craig: Ugh, I love him so much. He’s so sweet.

Todd: He’s so, they really do him up in this too, and I guess he wasn’t gonna act anymore after that, but But, uh, he pulled him out of retirement. Yeah, this was, yeah, it was his last,

Craig: and that was it. This was the last one.

Todd: Yeah. Last live action role.

I guess he must’ve done a voice or,

Craig: Oh, right.

Todd: Who else is in there?

Craig: Richard Griffiths, who is magistrate Phillips, who is uncle Vernon from Harry Potter,

Todd: as I watched him slovenly sitting down, slurping things up and eating tea, I’m like, what must it be like? To be the guy, who it’s like, Anytime I need a big disgusting fat man, this is the actor I call, you know?

Craig: And isn’t he the one, like, At some point, he dies, a bunch of people die in this movie, But he, his death scene, he’s like, Walking up a hill, and I was genuinely concerned for him. I, is he going to make it up that hill? Right. Because he’s a big guy and it didn’t look like he got around very well. For sure.

Miranda Richardson plays Mrs. Van Tassel. She has, I mean, all of these people have been in a million things, but the Harry Potter connection she was Rita Skeeter. Casper Van Dien, who I have always loved. I think Casper Van Dien deserves A list. He

Todd: does! Status. And I, I don’t understand why he doesn’t have it, because first of all, he’s just one of the most attractive looking guys in the world.

Yeah. And he’s real built, and he has been in like 150 things. I went to his IMDB page, because I was like, huh, I wonder if he’s like, still working pretty regularly? Oh yeah! For the past ten years, he’s been in like five movies or TV shows a year, at least. It’s kind of insane. But I first saw him in Starship Troopers, and I absolutely loved that movie, and I loved him in it.

Craig: Uh huh.

Todd: And so that would be a little closer to this one, right? I think 1997 was Starship Troopers. And that was, I think about his breakout role, right?

Craig: I guess that should have made him a huge star.

Todd: It did more for, uh, what’s her name? Denise Richards. Denise Richards than it did for him. And I was shocked.

Well, I mean, if you’ve got to choose between the two, I’m not terribly shocked.

Craig: I get it.

Todd: You know my, uh, my Denise Richards fascination, right?

Craig: I do. I get it. She’s a beautiful, beautiful woman. Christina Ricci plays Katrina Van Tussle. Casper Van Dien plays Brom Bones, by the way. Vom Van Brunt in this.

Todd: He’s like the Gaston of this.

Craig: He totally is! Oh, we’ll talk more about that later. But Christina Ricci plays Katrina Van Tussle, who’s the daughter of the rich guy or whatever.

And they, I just, there are things about it that I love. I love that they live in like a big Gothic mansion that just looks like a backdrop.

Clip: This land we’re looking at was Van Garret land given to my father when I was in Swadling Close. The Van Garrets were the richest family around these parts. When my father brought us to Sleepy Hollow, Van Garret set him up with an acre in a broken down cottage.

My father worked hard for his family, and prospered, and built this house. And I owe my happiness to him.

Craig: Okay, so Winona Ryder was at, was offered this role and she turned it down, I assume because her relationship with Johnny Depp had gone sour.

Todd: Oh really?

Craig: Well, I assume so, I don’t think they were still dating at this time, I can’t imagine why else she would have turned it down.

Maybe she just had something else going on, I don’t know, maybe they were still together. They were together for a long time, they were like a hot couple. And

Todd: weren’t their ages pretty close?

Craig: I think he was older than her. And I think that they got together when she was very young, so Yeah, yeah. But, but, they, you know, they were a serious couple.

I love the story that he tattooed Wynonna forever on himself. And then when they broke up, he had it changed to Wino forever. I love that. I love that story. But he was Johnny Depp was like thrown to, I mean, mentally, like he was thrown when he found out he was gonna be playing a romantic part opposite Christina Ricci because he was significantly older than her and knew her since she was a little girl because he was dating Winona Ryder at the time that they were filming Mermaids.

And Christina Ricci was a, Child in that movie. Yes. I get it.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: That’s funny. You want to hear a personal story? One time I was in a play.

Todd: With, with Christina Ricci? Go on. With

Craig: Christina Ricci. No, I, I got cast opposite one of my former students in a romantic role. Oh no. And we had to kiss a bunch. Oh my god.

Todd: That had to be strange.

Craig: It should have been, but It wasn’t like she was still a child like, you know, she was in her 20s at this point, right? and it should have been weird, but I Obviously platonically loved her so much and like we worked so well together that it wasn’t weird at all. That’s sweet. Um, for us, like her classmates from when she was in school, we’re like, Oh, God,

Todd: could

Craig: you imagine?

Right?

Todd: Mr. Higgins. Am I our English teacher?

Craig: But for us, it was fine. She was wonderful. She was one of the most amazing acting partners I’ve ever worked with. But yeah, I mean, it was a little weird. So I get it. I get where you’re Johnny Depp is coming from. Oh, we didn’t mention Christopher Lee is in it for about two minutes in the beginning

Todd: and apparently Christopher Lee in his memoirs Credited this film as being the one that were kind of reintroduced him to a new generation and he thinks it was directly responsible for him getting the roles in both Phantom Menace and Lord of the Rings?

Lord of the Rings, yeah. But Phantom Menace was filming around this time, so I don’t know if he just shot his scenes here early, or What the deal was? I’m not I’m not sure about all that, but

Craig: Well, he surely could have shot all of his scenes in a day or two. Oh yeah,

Todd: this was shot, yeah, in a In a hot minute, but this movie hadn’t even been out yet, and I think, well, Star Wars had wrapped, but I don’t think Star Yeah, Star Wars was coming out around the same year, 1999 2000.

But anyway, yeah, he thought that his role in this was significant. And I think Tim Burton just cast him because he was over the moon happy to cast one of his childhood heroes, you know, in Oh, absolutely. He threw him in there. I mean, if Vincent Price had been alive You know, he would have cast him in a movie too.

Well, he did. He cast him in, uh, Edward Scissorhands. But, uh

Clip: There is a town upstate, two days journey to the north in the Hudson Highlands. It is a place called Sleepy Hollow. Have you heard of it? I have not. An isolated farming community, mainly Dutch. Three persons have been murdered there all within a fortnight.

Each one found with the head lopped off. Lopped off? Clean as dandelion heads, apparently. You will take these experimentations of yours too, Sleepy Hollow. And there you will detect the murderer.

Craig: Well, and the casting of him and Michael Goh, like, really kind of adds to the authenticity and credibility of the movie and, and of what Tim Burton was trying to do.

Right. You know, like, it’s, it’s obvious that he’s a legitimate fan. Of these types of movies. He loves them. He’s doing this because he loves it. And he wants to, I think that shows in, in the care that was taken and the thought that was put in again, I can’t say enough. I don’t think it’s a bad movie. I think it’s really a very, very well made movie.

Just not, just didn’t work for me. Um, the only other one that we haven’t mentioned, I think is the very first person that we see on screen is uncredited Martin Landau.

Todd: He did it as a favor, I hear, to the cinematographer who directed those. I think it was the cinematographer of the movie who actually directed those initial scenes, um, not Tim Burton himself.

In fact, we might as well talk about this, too. Tim Burton wasn’t originally slated to direct this either. This movie came out in 99, but it started development in 93 with a script that had been written by Andrew Kevin Walker. Andrew Kevin Walker is the guy who wrote Seven, but even at this time, Seven hadn’t been picked up yet, but the script was floating around, and on the basis of reading that script and being impressed with it, some executives at Paramount got this screenplay, and because horror was getting kind of big right now.

I don’t know, like four years before here, this Bram Stoker’s Dracula came out. Scream had come out a few years before this as well. So horror was becoming a little more mainstream at this point. So I think they were looking for this kind of thing. And, uh, originally Kevin Yeager was going to direct it.

Kevin Yeager is an effects artist and he’s probably most famously known for doing, well, a number of things, but he, I love him because he did the Crypt Keeper. Puppet, and puppetry in the Tales from the Crypt series. But he’s done, you know, he did the effects for Starship Troopers, and lots of other things.

Loads of, uh, Freddy Krueger’s makeup, starting with the second one. So yeah, he was a veteran of the industry, but he never directed, and so he, this was gonna be his, uh, directorial, sort of, debut. But once things snowballed, I think the studio wanted to pull Tim Burton in it. Depending on what you read, either he got demoted, or he voluntarily said, step down because he was excited that Tim Burton was involved and just slipped back into the role of doing prosthetics and effects for the movie.

But it was originally just supposed to be like a low budget slasher movie and even the violence in the script had to eventually be toned down. They hired Tom Stoppard. And he’s not credited for it, but he did significant rewrites on the script to tone down the violence and ramp up the humor. And I’m surprised, like, I mean, it must have been pretty violent, because I, I, for a Tim Burton movie anyway, for a mainstream movie starring Johnny Depp and all these stars and directed by Tim Burton, I’m shocked at how much violence is in it.

Craig: It’s very violent, but they’re clever. So anytime the Headless Horseman. I guess we’re just kind of assuming that people know the general story. But anytime the Headless Horseman kills somebody, decapitates them, or whatever, stabs them through the gut to decapitate their unborn fetus, Um, anytime Anytime he does that, their wounds are immediately cauterized.

Yeah. So there’s no blood. So silly. Except when blood shoots out of like, uh, cadaver, I think, maybe, at one point, and a tree, a bleeding tree, at another point, directly onto Johnny Depp’s They, like, during the actual kills, there’s really no blood.

Todd: Yeah, I guess that makes it better. I mean, certainly it makes it a little better, but

Craig: Except, I mean, I guess when there is human on, like, non supernatural entity, if no supernatural entity is involved, there may be blood.

Like, at the end, a couple of those famous old guys die. Knock each other on the head. Oh, that’s true.

Todd: Or something like that. Oh boy. Still, when I started it, I was thinking, Oh, maybe this will be something in a year or two, I’ll show Kenji. And then I thought, no, this is not for children really. This is a. No, no, no, it is pretty dark. Yeah, it’s not, it doesn’t fit in the rest of our lineup so far with the, of Halloween as far as the, in between the worst witch and the Goosebumps.

TV, Goosebumps and Dark Night of the Scarecrow TV movie.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah, it is, it’s, it’s more violent than I expected. I don’t know, but there’s, there’s something about it, about the violence that, feels almost quaint. Like it, it feels it’s, it’s almost no worse than the violence that you would see in the old movies, the old hammer movies.

I, now I re I don’t know specifics, but I read that Burton wanted to use as few digital effects as possible, but of course they had to use some digital effects. Like this was the only. filmed version of this story where the headless horseman didn’t have to hide his head underneath the cape like they They computed it out.

They computed his head out But when you see as you often do somebody get decapitated and their head rolling on the ground It’s, it’s CGI. At least some of it. At least they’ve cleaned it up with CGI. I don’t know, it just, it didn’t feel scary to me. I definitely got the vibe. Like, this, this movie is a great vibe.

It’s a great Halloween vibe. Put it on in the background at a party, at a Halloween party.

Todd: You haven’t broken that one out in a while.

Craig: Because there’s great, like everything is a great visual, like if it was just on in the background, anytime you looked at it, it’s going to look great. It’s going to be a great vibe. And, and those rolling heads, they’re a great vibe, but they almost look more like a Halloween gag than. Something really scary.

You know what I’m saying? Yeah, I

Todd: mean,

Craig: they don’t

Todd: look fake. I mean, the prosthetics are actually really quite good. I thought in several cases, very convincing. But, you’re right. It’s, I guess it’s kind of a gruesome, dark joke always when a head rolls towards someone, you know? Or the heads are rolling around on the ground.

Right, but

Craig: you’re not seeing, like, viscera, like, coming out of their neck, you know?

Todd: Yeah, it’s like they’re spurting blood and, you know, the look on their faces. Right, right, right. Yeah, it’s true. Right. Right. Right. Anyway, a lot of heads roll in this movie, that’s for sure. And for that reason, I wouldn’t show it to my kids.

Despite the fact there’s no blood squirting around, the idea of people getting their heads chopped off right and left, quite brutally, really, you know, in these very brutal fight scenes, you know, full of energy and, and I think rather convincing.

Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a great fight scene with Ichabod. And the headless horseman, which again, doesn’t make any sense.

Like why is Ichabod suddenly jumping into a sword fight? Like it doesn’t, Brom is butch and, and is trying to prove himself or whatever. He’s a dummy for getting into a fight with a supernatural thing that you can’t kill. I mean, I guess he doesn’t know that despite the fact that it has no head. But that’s, that’s one, that’s one part that I really liked.

That was, that’s a great fight scene. It goes on for a long time and there are some surprises in it. I loved the part where they’re standing, looking through the bridge. Like the legend is the Hessian or the Headless Horseman or whatever, can’t cross this bridge. And so they’ve just fought him on one side of the bridge and run to the other side and they’re standing on the other side, looking through and they hear.

Footsteps, but they don’t see anything and in my mind. I’m thinking. Oh my gosh is is he like invisible now? Can he do that? But no, it’s it’s far more logical and practical He’s just walking across the roof and then he jumps down right in front of them But I thought that was a really effective scare.

Yeah, and then they have a big fight a huge choreographed long Like sword fight with different weapons and stuff. And in the end, Brum gets sliced in half. Oh God. It’s crazy. So there are a lot of great things in this movie like that. And because we have clearly already blown our opportunity to talk about this.

From start to finish. I feel like maybe we should just start talking about what are some of our favorite things about this movie

Todd: Well, I’ll tell you all right laying aside the fact that Ichabod is like not really Ichabod that I know He’s investigating things and he’s trying to figure things out What I didn’t really care for was all the investigation in the movie because after a while I got so lost I didn’t I couldn’t keep track of These two families and he would see a clue in a book or a family tree or he would see some symbol and He’d get a knowing look on his face like he sorted something out, and I’d be like, What?

Did I forget something? Or am I just not following closely enough? Am I supposed to understand these connections that are being made? I just kind of gave up, and I think it turned out I didn’t, it didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. The movie will just eventually tell you, and it doesn’t, and that’s fine.

Craig: To be fair, it all lines up.

Yeah. But it is very, it is very contrived. It is a very complicated web they weave, but everybody is connected in some way and they’ll explain it to you in great detail. When necessary.

Todd: When necessary. There will be a nice monologue to put everything into place.

Craig: Yeah. Even at the very end, when the villain, it, as it turns, okay, so the first half of the movie is the regular story basically, which of course.

There’s a headless horseman and people are scared of it, blah, blah, blah. And then Ichabod’s scared of it and it confronts him on a bridge. And that’s the end of the regular story in the movie. Then they figure out who he is. He’s some spirit that’s coming back from this tree. The tree of the dead, he, he bursts forth out of this tree supernaturally every night and just steals somebody’s head.

And then they figured out who it is. Now we know that it really is him. Then the second half becomes a mystery because somehow Johnny Depp figures out that it’s not really just the Headless Horseman, but somebody is controlling him because they stole his skull out of his grave, buried at the tree, and he just wants his own skull back.

And so that’s why he’s going around killing people. So somebody is controlling him. And when it’s revealed who the. who the villain is, that person then gives a huge monologue that connects all of the pieces.

Todd: Information that is deliberately withheld from you until she can give her monologue and her big reveal

Craig: Well, one of the things that I was very confused by I did understand like all of the old men All of like the town old men who are in charge of everything all of them were connected and I got that there were like sex scandals and All kinds of things going on there.

I understood all that the one thing that I didn’t understand and i’m glad Because this was also another One of my favorite parts of the movie was there was a young family, a husband and a wife and a child, a young child. Like a baby, like a four year old, I guess, maybe, or tiny. And she was a midwife and we, we saw her early on in the movie.

She and her family popped back up later. And then there’s just one scene where the headless horseman just goes after them. Breaks into their house. Yeah. Yes. And, and the mom and the child. are in the back and he just like he fights the dad and then he cuts the dad’s head off and then the mom puts the kid under the floor and The headless horseman just like relentlessly comes for her and chops her head off, too.

Now Mind you, the kid is under the floor, but he can see everything that’s going on. I was Shocked. Yes, like I was I was shook This was so dark to me

Todd: Her head falls to the floor rolls towards a gap in the floorboards to the point where he’s looking up into her dead eyes

Craig: I, I was genuinely shocked. And then the horseman starts to walk out, but he stops in the doorframe and turns around, and goes back in and starts axing through the floor right above the baby.

And you don’t see

Todd: it on camera, but he kills that baby too. Yeah, you, all you see is, it’s the outside and the horseman’s coming out of the house and he’s stuffing a third smaller head into his sack. Oh my

Craig: god! I, uh, mad respect to Tim Burton for doing that, and I read that he said that’s one thing that he hates about horror movies.

Horror movies with kids, the kids are safe, and he didn’t want to do that, and man, that was dark. I was, I, I was legitimately shocked.

Todd: It’s amazing it made it into the final cut because you could have easily cut that. Like, it was almost shot with the idea that it could possibly get cut. And it didn’t. It’s amazing.

Craig: Yeah, it, oh, absolutely. They could have easily cut with him just walking out before he stopped in the door frame. Okay, so that was a part that I loved. I’ll volley it to you. There are other parts I want to talk about, but what were your favorite parts? There’s

Todd: the part where he goes out and the only, I can’t remember what this kid’s relationship was, this, this little boy.

that he ends up kind of partnering with.

Craig: Okay, so his, his dad was the servant of one of the guys that got killed early on. He was Martin Landau’s servant. Oh,

Todd: okay.

Craig: And then he got killed too. Oh,

Todd: okay. So it’s kind of a little orphan kid now.

Craig: He’s a little orphan and, and Ichabod takes him on as a servant, basically adopts him.

Todd: Yeah, okay. So then he’s the only one who’s willing to go into the woods with him to seek down the headless horseman because he figures if he can find him, I don’t know what he’s hoping for, but he’s just gonna try to find him. So he wanders into the woods and it’s just great because it’s just all of these very typical horror movie things.

They come across an old hut in the woods and it looks exactly like a witch’s hut, a fact that they walk into and immediately start stating. It’s a

Craig: cave. It is.

Todd: It’s like a cave in a rock just in the middle of the woods, but not in the side of a mountain or anything, just. Sticking out of the ground and they go in and it’s so funny because you walk in and it’s a classic witches hut and immediately Ichabod is shaking and he holds his gun up and he’s

Clip: like I should like to say that I make no assumptions about your occupation.

No your ways which which which which Nothing to me whatever you are

Craig: Each to his own

Yeah, it was really funny.

Todd: But anyway, I thought this sequence was genuinely scary, and I really liked this bit. I did too. It’s kind of thrown in there, but uh, it just gives him the necessary direction he needs. Because how in the world is he going to find this headless horseman just by walking straight into the woods?

So, the witch is able to chain herself to a table and conjure up a drink. this thing and I mean even this is pretty like again for kids especially pretty gruesome like oh yeah too scary chops the foot off of a of a bird and gets possessed by some spirit of something and leaps onto him and I don’t know what that was I mean it’s all kind of she

Craig: she turns all ghosty faced and like Snakes come out of her eyes.

Her eyes disappear

Todd: somehow. Anyway, loved that bit. Very Halloween. Very scary. Very fun. And she’s the one who tells him the directions, which is to go west on the Old trail to where the sun dies. Well, that’s West. And then, uh, to the, to the tree of the dead. Now, I guess they don’t explore these woods too much, right?

Cause you would think the locals would know all about the tree of the dead, but the tree of the dead is deep into the woods and it’s this giant, awesome looking tree that kind of looks a little bit like a. Man or, you know, something twisted sideways and it’s got all these roots at the bottom and when Ichabod walks up to it You can see the tree itself is bleeding and I just I liked this bit.

I thought yeah, I did too You know what’s gonna happen when they find the grave of this of this horseman? Is he gonna not be in the grave? Is he gonna be around the grave? Like Now they can come back to it, like, what’s the deal? Can they just, like, chop off the body or like, what, what’s gonna happen? And the fact, I think the conceit is that once the Headless Horseman was buried there, this Tree of the Dead kind of grew up around it and became a gateway to hell?

Craig: A gateway to another world is what, or another dimension or something, is what Ichabod Crane just figures out.

Todd: On instinct,

Craig: right? Yeah, yeah. But he’s right, because the, that’s the, like, gate, the, like, the tree opens up and the horse and the horseman just gallop out of it. And it looks cool, I like it, that’s fun.

That was awesome. I also think that it’s cool that, like, the horseman, every time he, He takes somebody’s head, he literally takes it, like he, he doesn’t leave it behind, but apparently, I don’t really understand this, but I guess, like, mortal flesh can’t cross over, because the heads are all just there at the gate.

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: And that’s, he finds them there, and then at the end It’s

Todd: like a little head storage place, it’s like he’s squirreling them away like acorns inside the tree, it’s kind of

Craig: Well, I actually thought it was that he was trying to take it with him, but he couldn’t. Oh! The gate cuts. stuck at the front and that kind of explains the very end, right?

Todd: Oh, I think I missed that bit, but you’re right.

Craig: Yeah. I think he, he tries to take them, but he can’t. There’s no need to tease. We’re almost out of time at the very end. We find out who the bad guy who’s been controlling. The horseman is, and that person, I’ll still save it I guess, that person, he grabs and tries to take back with him, but that person gets, like, squashed, like blood just shoots out of the tree and their arm is just left hanging.

Todd: Sticking out. Yeah. Oh, that makes sense then. Okay, I wasn’t quite sure what that was supposed to mean, and now I know.

Craig: Something else that I liked. was the throwbacks to the Disney cartoon. And there were several of them, and I loved that. At one point, Ichabod is going over the bridge, and the frogs underneath the bridge are

Clip: going, Ichabod!

And

Craig: that comes directly from the cartoon, the iconic scene, the scene that they would tease in the commercials every Halloween with the headless horseman rearing his horse up on its hind legs and him headless with a flaming jack o lantern held over his head. They recreate that scene in this and he throws it at Ichabod and it does exactly what the Disney cartoon does with the camera is just right in front of the flaming jack o lantern as it’s moving forward and then it hits Ichabod.

Oh God, I loved that. And in that scene, it turns out that that was not really the headless horseman. That was Brom playing a trick on Ichabod. And that is the reality of the story. Or at least that’s what’s strongly implied. Yeah. That Brom was just playing a trick on Ichabod, but Ichabod was so scared and humiliated that he left town and started a new life.

So I loved that. Didn’t love Christina Ricci. I love Christina Ricci. I am like one of the biggest fans of Christina Ricci. I love her. I didn’t care for her in this movie. Maybe it was just because she was cast opposite. He, I don’t know. It’s not, she just looked like a child to me. It

Todd: was really hard to get over that.

Craig: So it was weird to think of her. It was weird to think of her in any kind of romantic context because she looked like a child. But

Todd: you know, I was thinking about that and It’s not unusual for the time Either this was a time where men in their 20s were marrying 14 year olds, right? That’s true. That’s true So it wasn’t improper, but it just doesn’t feel right when you’re seeing it from a modern in a modern day movie

Craig: well, and their I I felt like their romance was so forced like they barely shared any screen time and like they Immediately fell in love and like she had known him for five seconds before she gave him You A book that her mother had passed down to her?

Todd: Yeah.

Craig: That’s true.

Todd: Whatever. But she’s also more of a plot device, I think, than anything else. True. Because there’s constantly suspicion being cast back and forth as to whether or not she might have something to do with what’s going on. And so, you know, there’s sort of that aspect to it as well. I don’t know.

I didn’t mind her in this movie. I just didn’t think she was that great. Just like, I thought Johnny Depp was a bit uneven and in all this, or maybe just his character was. I just loved seeing all the old, older actors. It was

Craig: just, it was so

Todd: great.

Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll think of more things to talk about, but I’m just going to go ahead and say, I think that you should 100 percent watch this movie.

Because I think that you listener might like it more than I did. It is a good movie. All of these people in it are, you know, there are, there are Oscar winners in it. There are Oscar nominees in it. These are established, respectable. Actors and for a good reason and and Tim Burton is great just to see all of these old guys

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: you’ve seen in a million things, but then also to see Really great set work.

It’s it’s it’s so difficult for me because I really have no Specific legitimate complaints. It just didn’t work for me for whatever reason but you should 100 percent watch it and then let us know what you think Cause I am genuinely curious. I don’t hear people talking about this movie. It’s not like I think it’s some kind of classic or even like a cult thing.

Yeah. Um, it, it seems to me like it kind of came and went. It’s true. So I don’t know. If you’re a big fan, please, please just tell me what, why I’m wrong.

Todd: Yeah. It’s funny that you should mention that actually, because come to think of it, I’ve always been aware of this movie. And I think in my mind, this movie was a big deal when it came out.

And maybe it was, it certainly grossed a lot. Like 200 and some million over the course of the year, plus who knows what else. But at the same time But if I really think about it, I haven’t heard or seen much of it since. I mean, there’s a lot of movies from this era that we haven’t. I mean, No. Does anybody talk about Bram Stoker’s Dracula anymore?

Craig: Nerds like me do, but I don’t really hear a lot of talk about this one. And, this would be, you know, we have been in the Thick of the time of year where streaming services and cable services are going out of their way to provide horror and specifically Halloween content. This seems like this would be ideal.

Yes. I haven’t seen it. I

Todd: haven’t either. It was hard to find. You’re right. So, uh, seek it out wherever you can. Definitely watch it. Definitely. That’s our hot take on it. Anyway, I guess I’m, you know, I didn’t, I didn’t really like particularly love it, but I certainly didn’t hate it. It just wasn’t, it wasn’t even what I remembered it being, to be quite frank with you.

And I’m not quite sure why. So, but, but still dripping with Halloween atmosphere.

Craig: Oh yeah. I love that stuff. Like, Jack o lanterns. The very, very first scene has a great. Big scarecrow with a jack o lantern head and I read that it was the Scarecrow from the nightmare before christmas.

Todd: Yeah, it’s exactly that one.

It’s cool.

Craig: And there’s a big halloween party It’s a great halloween party

Todd: Like you said, I encourage our listeners to respond and let us know what they think of this movie and give us some perspectives that maybe we lack here. The way you can do that, to let us know, is just to go to our website, ChainsawHorror.

com. We have all of our episodes up there, including this one. You can leave a comment on it, or of course, you can just search for our podcast anywhere. Two guys and a chainsaw podcast is what we’ll send you to any one of our places. Of course, all of the podcast hosting services, our YouTube channel has a comment section on it as well.

And of course, I just mentioned our patrons page, uh, patreon. com slash chainsaw podcast. If you are at all, a member of our patrons, you’re going to be having a lot of fun with us this Halloween because we have a few mini shows that we’ve been posting as supplements to what we’ve been doing. I’m really looking forward actually to talking about this cartoon and the story behind it as well.

So get in on that action, patreon. com slash chainsaw. podcast. There’s no better time than now. Until next time, I’m Todd and I’m Craig with Two Guys and a Chainsaw

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Sleepy Hollow

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

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