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Parents' Guide to

Sleepy Hollow

By Nell Minow, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 18+

Very gory, violent take on classic tale.

Movie R 1999 105 minutes
Sleepy Hollow Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 13+

Based on 19 parent reviews

Ejpinkley
Ejpinkley Parent of 18+ and 2-year-old
October 9, 2022
age 18+
Wow. It’s meh. Very bloody.

This title has:

Too much violence
ContentFlag
ContentFlag Adult
August 24, 2022
age 16+

Rated 16 (strong gore, horror, injury detail).

MAIN CONTENT ISSUES - There are images of strong gore throughout, mainly in the aftermath of violence after people have had their heads chopped off, with frequent sight of the severed heads. These gory scenes are only occasionally accompanied by sight of blood spurting. Other moments of gore include brief sight of a man getting chopped in half, and a scene where a man is impaled with a spike through his back and dragged out of a window. Strong horror and threat occurs throughout, including one scene of strong bloody horror where a woman's corpse falls out of an iron maiden torture device causing blood to spill out onto a young boy, as well as a scene where a character finds a bundle of bloody severed heads in a tree. There are occasional moments of strong injury detail where decapitated bodies are examined, and there is close-up sight of their neck wounds, including one moment where a cockroach crawls out of a corpse's neck injury, as well as other moments where people are seen splattered with blood. | OTHER ISSUES - There is one brief scene of moderate sex. There is strong fantasy violence throughout; the aftermath of the violence is more graphic than the violence itself. | RATED "16" - Suitable only for persons aged 16 years and over. Contains content not recommended for viewing by any person below the age of 16.
See all 19 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Johnny Depp plays the honorable but easily frightened Ichabod Crane, not a schoolteacher in this version but a sort of 18th-century detective, committed to the use of science and logic. He is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of murders attributed to the Headless Horseman, the ghost of a bloodthirsty Hessian soldier, who steals the heads of his victims because his own was stolen from his grave. Crane insists that the murderer cannot be supernatural -- until he sees it himself. Still, he analyzes the evidence to find the secrets that link the victims and the human force driving the Headless Horseman.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (19 ):
Kids say (75 ):

SLEEPY HOLLOW is less the Washington Irving story than it is Scream set in post-Revolution times. The themes of science vs. supernatural and appearance vs. reality appear throughout the movie as Crane must understand his own past to see the truth. He describes himself as "imprisoned by a chain of reasoning." He keeps coming back to a toy given to him by his mother, a spinning disk with a bird on one side and a cage on the other. As it spins, the bird appears to be inside the cage, an optical illusion, and, not by coincidence, the very illusion (persistence of vision) that makes viewers think that the people in the thousands of still pictures that make up a movie are really moving.

Depp plays Crane with the right haunted look and rigid posture. But the ludicrousness of some of the plot turns and the exaggerated fright reactions leave him with the most outrageous eye-rolling since Harvey Korman's imitation of a silent film star. Indeed, the movie frequently brings to mind those sublime Carol Burnett Show movie parodies, especially when the villain ultimately finds time for a detailed confession as the planned final victim is waiting for the Headless Horseman to arrive. The wonderful Christina Ricci is wasted in an ingenue part.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about whether gore is ever necessary in a film. Is gory the same thing as scary?

  • In the original "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," Ichabod Crane is a teacher, but in this movie, he is reimagined as a New York City detective sent to the upstate New York village of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of mysterious murders by decapitation. Why do you think some filmmakers take liberties when adapting classic stories into movies?

  • This movie was directed by Tim Burton, a director with a well-known style. How does this movie fit in with his overall style? Who are some other directors with distinct styles of moviemaking?

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