The Legend of Sleepy Hollow GIFs
Let's Be Honest About What a Nightmare Factory The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Is
I have all kinds of warm and fuzzy Halloween memories from my childhood, even though the holiday is, by nature, based on scary things. Mostly I remember fondly all of my costumes as a kid, going trick-or-treating with my sisters, and, in the days after, boosting each other up to get our candy bags off the shelf in my mom's closet where she tried to keep them from us. There is one tradition that we had, however, that was not really all that cool and probably helped seed my adult hatred of horror movies: we watched Disney's "animated classic" The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
It seems innocent enough — the 1949 film is based on Washington Irving's early American folk tale, and good ol' Bing Crosby sings throughout. Until Ichabod Crane is murdered on his way home from a Halloween party by a ghoul who would in no way be considered an appropriate Disney villain today. Modern iterations of the tale — the 1999 Tim Burton live-action movie and the live-action Fox drama — have the decency to portray it with the amount of scariness it deserves, but many of us were probably subject to watching the "fun, festive" Disney movie as kids. Herein I will demonstrate exactly why it's not quite the sweet Halloween movie the studio would have you believe, but an Ichabod Crane snuff film.
It's About Ichabod Crane, This Totally Fun-Loving Guy Who Has a Fairly High Opinion of Himself
He Loves Eating, and There's All These Ridiculous Scenes of Him Doing Stuff Like This:
It Legitimately Is a Comedy For the First Three-Quarters of the Movie
Oh, Then Turns Into a Love Story, Because There's This Girl, Katrina Van Tassel
She's the Town Babe, and Ichabod Wants to Get With Her
This Is Where Things Take a Slight Turn . . .
Ichabod Pursues Katrina at a Halloween Party, Where He Can Make His Move
But He Has a Romantic Rival: Brom Bones, This Big Dude
Again, Any Rivalry Is Used For Laughs, and We're All Having a Good Time, Until . . .
. . . A Jealous Brom Tells a Creepy Story About a Headless Horseman That Chases You Down in the Night to Cut Off Your Head
It Starts to Rattle Ichabod, and You Too
Weird Sh*t Starts Happening at the Previously Fun Party
Then Ichabod Has to Leave on the Path That Brom Was Just Saying Was Frequented by a Supernatural Serial Killer
