Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Ashvin Prakash (0:17)

Hey there, listeners. Welcome to Horror Movie Club, the show where two dudes who aren't quite nerds, but not quite noobs choose a horror movie each week to rate and review. I'm Ashvin. I'm on the phone with Brian. And this week, we're officially kicking off October and the spooky season with the review of the 1999 film Sleepy Hollow, directed by Tim Burton, based on a 1920 story by Washington Irving, and starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, and Christopher Walken. In this film, a constable from New York City is sent to a rural town to track down a spree of murders being supposedly committed by a headless horseman. If you're new to our show, we're going to have a spoiler-free discussion for the first 10, 15 minutes, then we'll take a quick break, and then we'll come back, we'll jump into the plot, we'll spoil the film, and we'll go through our review. And this episode, like all of our episodes, is brought to you thanks to the generous support of our Patreon members. Thank you all for your support. If you want to support the show and get a bonus episode every month, as well as access to our Discord server and the ability to leave reviews that we read sometimes at the end of the episode, you can join our Patreon community by clicking on the orange button on our website, horrormovieclub.com. And for as little as $3 a month, you can become a supporter of the show and get some of those benefits.

So yeah, excited to be talking about this film.

Brian, this was maybe a second watch for me. I feel like I saw this maybe in theaters when it came out and hadn't seen it since. How about you?

Brian Bisesi (1:51)

I had never seen this one. I've always been curious, so I'm excited to finally get to it. It seems like the people who were asking for it thought it would be a good fit for the Halloween season. So here we are, finally getting to it. I was excited to watch it.

Ashvin Prakash (2:04)

Yeah, me too. It really does kind of bring in all the Halloween elements into it. I think you got Tim Burton as a director, who's like known for being on the spookier, gothier side of things. And then Johnny Depp, and a lot of imagery of pumpkins with fire around them in this film, right?

Brian Bisesi (2:22)

Yeah, yeah, some jack-o-lanterns.

Ashvin Prakash (2:23)

Yeah.

Brian Bisesi (2:24)

Hey, did you ever see the Disney animated version when you were a kid? From like the 1940s or something?

Ashvin Prakash (2:30)

No, did you?

Brian Bisesi (2:32)

Yeah, that actually spooked me out a bit when I was a kid.

Ashvin Prakash (2:35)

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, I'd love to check that out. I know that was probably an inspiration for some of what was shot here. But yeah, there's probably been a few iterations of this. There wasn't a musical of this, was there?

Brian Bisesi (2:48)

Hmm, I don't know. I don't think so, but it's possible.

Ashvin Prakash (2:52)

Yeah, I know for Sweeney Todd, there was a musical, and that film is kind of like a musical, and that's Tim Burton, Johnny Depp. But yeah, this one, old story, has been probably done a few times, but this is like a big budget approach to it. So, it's interesting.

Brian Bisesi (3:07)

We could probably cover that demon barber of... Well, shit, I forgot the Sweeney Todd.

Ashvin Prakash (3:15)

Sweeney Todd, yeah.

Brian Bisesi (3:15)

I think we could cover that. I mean, it's kind of like a horror movie, and it's a musical.

Ashvin Prakash (3:21)

Yeah. You know, Tim Burton, I feel like, has always been kind of horror-adjacent with the original Batman, Edward Sizzlehand's this, and Todd's Sweeney Todd.

What do you think of him? Do you put him in horror, do you feel like he's someone that horror fans embrace?

Brian Bisesi (3:39)

I think that he's often just like embraced by horror fans. Horror-adjacent feels more correct, because even this is like, I don't know, maybe a horror movie. I guess probably it is, but it's not hard on the horror.

But yeah, adjacent feels right. Even Bee Wee's Big Adventure had a... I think that made our list of top 10 scariest kids for movies that weren't horror movies or whatever we thought of that episode.

Ashvin Prakash (4:05)

Right. That was his first movie, right?

Brian Bisesi (4:07)

Beetlejuice, Horror Adjacent, that was his first movie, yeah.

Ashvin Prakash (4:10)

Yeah, Beetlejuice for sure.

Brian Bisesi (4:12)

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is always kind of creepy, Corpse Bride, Dark Shadows.