Director: John Kirkand
Starring: Ultra Violet, Marland Proctor, Claudia Reame. USA. 1h 15m.
In all fairness the coolest aspect of this movie is that one of the actresses is called Ultra Violet and she enters the film with the coolest Superman Lunch box and from then on it’s downhill for this Scooby Doo nightmare.
In the spirit of Ichabod Crane horrors and the Headless horseman folklore, this film falls flat as it pulls apart the ancient tale and only delivers the Horseman in a series of psychedelic desert scenes with a loose plot involving a inherited ranch. There is a distinct smell of cheese that permeate this terrible PG thriller, it’s ability to spend more time filming stage shows then entities really lets it down. I’m all for patiently sitting through cheaply made movies, but this one is incredibly hard to watch with shaky camera work, laboured dialogue and a dimly lit fuzzy quality as any camcorner found footage, there’s not much to defend.
A young man inherits his uncle’s western ranch, but there’s a stipulation that he has to make the place turn a decent profit or it goes to the current groundskeeper, so he invites his hippy friends up to the ranch to help him to help fill the quota. On arrival in this alien environment that seems set back in time, they are told about the curse of the headless horseman but laugh it off until they begin to be picked off one by one by this supernatural being who carries his head under his arm and is looking for 8 gunmen, or so the fable goes, in reality this ghostly specter just chases after high teens who can’t find their way home.
The kids do a lot of stage performances in hope of turning the place into some kind of music venue, they drop acid and camp out until ole headless arrives, in one of the best kills his slowly plods along while a girl derps about flailing her arms and swinging her head about while she runs, because that’s how you run from a monster, sadly she twangs herself straight into a car, but the horseman gets the blame even though no one saw him.
The movie is so far apart from the folklore legend, which isn’t bad but cracking twist is worked out in 3 minutes and that’s only 12 minutes before the end of the film, so it’s a really long wait until the movie gives up it’s best feature which leaves way too much time for the film to look cheap and silly.
Rating: 1/10
R: The Headless Horseman (1922) , Sleepy Hollow (1999)
A: The AOFA Short Introduction and History of The Headless Horseman
Trailer
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