This is Halloween: Sleepy Hollow

Halloween is my favorite holiday. As such, I find it only fitting that I should review a fight scene from a movie of the horror persuasion. I chose to look at this fight scene from Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow.

As the title would suggest, the movie Sleepy Hollow is loosely based on the actual Legend of Sleepy Hollow, an old folktale that takes place in Sleepy Hollow, NY. There are several fight scenes within this feature film. This one, however, stood out from all the rest.

This fight scene is one of my favorites. While it is very well choreographed and rehearsed, there is an ulterior reasoning behind my feelings towards it. I appreciate this fight primarily because of its inventive utilization of unique and varying weapons. For example, in the very beginning of the scene, at around 0:30, one character shoots the Horsemen. Afterwards, this same character experiences some technical difficulties reloading the gun. So what does this character opt to do? He uses his gun as a sword! Knowing that the Horsemen is incredibly dangerous, he attempts to cut to the Headless Horsemen’s “head area”. This seems like a logical thing to do. After all, anyone in a life-threatening situation would likely be willing to use anything to protect themselves.  However, I find that there are several examples of this simple maneuver being skipped in favor of something more complicated, such as dropping the gun and running to grab another weapon.

Additionally, this fight features not just guns, but eclectic farming tools. Later on in the fight, this same character grabs some farming sickles and uses those to fight. It is an absolute joy to see these types of weapons being used in a fight. Typically, fighting is done with basic swords, knives, unarmed, or occasionally with a quarterstaff. In this fight, the choreographer chose to not only utilize interesting weapons, but also to use those weapons in a unique manner. That, my friends, is creativity at its finest.

I also enjoy this fight because it tells a strong story despite being so short. Anyone who was unfamiliar with the Legend of Sleepy Hollow could watch this fight and likely get an idea of what the legend is about. They do an excellent job playing with the fact that the Horsemen does not have a head and is not technically alive. For example, at 1:15, Johnny Depp’s character, Ichabod Crane, steps into the fight and stabs the Horsemen with a sythe. The Horsemen then pauses for a moment and is visually experiencing the pain of being stabbed. However, the fight doesn’t end there. Instead, the Horsemen just keeps on fighting with a sythe in his back causing his opponents to run away realizing they will not be able to win.

This fight is glorious. It tells a story and is inventive in its use of unique weapons. Despite only being a little more than 2 minutes long, this fight is much stronger than some of the 10-minute fight scenes I have seen.

On that note, I’d like to finish up by saying:

Be safe and Happy Halloween!