{"id":11688,"date":"2007-10-29T22:23:14","date_gmt":"2007-10-30T02:23:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=11688"},"modified":"2007-10-29T22:23:14","modified_gmt":"2007-10-30T02:23:14","slug":"headless-horseman-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/29\/headless-horseman-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Headless Horseman (2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Headless-Horseman-2007.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-11689\" alt=\"Headless-Horseman-(2007)\" src=\"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Headless-Horseman-2007.jpg\" width=\"436\" height=\"288\" \/><\/a><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:WordDocument>\n<w:View>Normal<\/w:View>\n<w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>\n<w:PunctuationKerning\/>\n<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>\n<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false<\/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>\n<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false<\/w:IgnoreMixedContent>\n<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false<\/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>\n<w:Compatibility>\n<w:BreakWrappedTables\/>\n<w:SnapToGridInCell\/>\n<w:WrapTextWithPunct\/>\n<w:UseAsianBreakRules\/>\n<w:DontGrowAutofit\/>\n<\/w:Compatibility>\n<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/w:BrowserLevel>\n<\/w:WordDocument>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>\n<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\">\n<\/w:LatentStyles>\n<\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid=\"clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D\" id=ieooui><\/object>\n\n\n\n<style>\nst1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }\n<\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>\n\n\n\n<style>\n \/* Style Definitions *\/\n table.MsoNormalTable\n\t{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\n\tmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\n\tmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\n\tmso-style-noshow:yes;\n\tmso-style-parent:\"\";\n\tmso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\n\tmso-para-margin:0in;\n\tmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\n\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\n\tfont-size:10.0pt;\n\tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\n\tmso-ansi-language:#0400;\n\tmso-fareast-language:#0400;\n\tmso-bidi-language:#0400;}\n<\/style>\n\n<![endif]-->I didn\u2019t expect \u201cHeadless Horseman\u201d to live up to these standards, because it\u2019s clearly a low budget horror effort, but hell, when you spin on the Sleepy Hollow tale, you have some responsibility to entertain. And if you fail, you\u2019re going to fall hard. \u201cHeadless Horseman\u201d is that exact movie that takes a classic tale and turns it into much more clich\u00e9s. There\u2019s a bunch of white bread actors playing college students who are on the road traveling to a party. I think. Their van breaks down, and they end up in an old Southern town where old characters mutter chestnuts like \u201cY\u2019all just passing through, huh?\u201d Director Ferrante really twists the story for the sake of avoiding anachronisms and error in facts, especially insisting that the character of the headless horseman really didn\u2019t strike in New England, but the Southern town they happen upon.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->As they settle in and discover the odd town filled with ancient buildings and run of the mill attempted surrealism (Dwarfs? Really? Who uses Dwarfs for surrealism, anymore?), eventually, \u201cHeadless Horseman\u201d turns into \u201cTexas Chainsaw Massacre\u201d with the iconic horror character in place of Leatherface. There are abandoned wrecked cars, creaky old houses, crusty residents, and for the first time ever, the Headless Horseman is completely void of personality or menace. So, yet again, we\u2019re forced to watch a group of twenty something\u2019s stroll into this decrepit town and display a shocking amount of apathy once one of their friends gets his head lopped off. The obligatory hot member of the town explains the convoluted origin of the headless horseman, and our characters even come across a psychotic sheriff who brought back painful flashbacks of R. Lee Ermy. That\u2019s probably the sole intent.<\/p>\n<p>Remaking the \u201cTexas Chainsaw Massacre\u201d without avoiding the copyright infringement, and Ferrante succeeds in giving us a classic monster that is about as much of a one dimensional prop as ever. Ferrante craftily keeps the horseman at arms view so we don\u2019t have to see that his head is still attached, and the rest is done through propped up dummies, actors with suits over their heads, and one wide shot that probably took up most of the film\u2019s budget. And once the Horseman loses his horse and takes to riding a motorcycle, well\u2026 I knew everyone involved had all but given up. The direct of &#8220;Boo&#8221; serves up a bonafide dud of a horror film that pretends to be a spin on the Headless Horseman but really is just another rip off of &#8220;The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I didn\u2019t expect \u201cHeadless Horseman\u201d to live up to these standards, because it\u2019s clearly a low budget horror effort, but hell, when you spin on the Sleepy Hollow tale, you have some responsibility to entertain. And if you fail, you\u2019re going to fall hard. \u201cHeadless Horseman\u201d is that exact movie that takes a classic tale [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[438,477,1008,1087,1130],"class_list":["post-11688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-h","tag-horror","tag-supernatural","tag-thriller","tag-tv-movie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}