DVD Reviews
DVD Review: Headless Horseman
By Jeff Swindoll
May 8, 2008, 12:45 GMT

The Sci-Fi Channel movie machine continues to churn them out and this one’s sticker boldly proclaims it on the front of the box.  It’s all good goofball fun as Headless, as some of the character lamely say, looks for seven heads to send to hell.  Yours may be one if you take this film too seriously.  

Seven friends, Liam (Billy Aaron Brown), Ava (Rebecca Mozo), Tiffany (Arianne Fraser), Lizzie (Trish Coren), Nash (Brent Lydic), Doc (Joe Hartzler), and Seth (Elvin Dandel), are heading for a party on Halloween.  They decide to take a back road.  After they cross a rickety bridge they run over a bear trap and blow one of their van’s tires out. 

A tow truck just happens to pull up driven by Candy (Elizabeth Prestel) and she takes them into the town of Wormwood to her Pa (M. Steven Felty).  The town is full of creepy citizens and a southern fried nutcase called Kolchak Jefferson Stillwall (Richard Moll, looking like a bargain basement Vincent Price) runs the general store. 

The creepy residents are having a headless horseman festival and claim that their legend is the true one and that Washington Irving’s tale was a whitewash.  It turns out that in 1806 a whack job named Calvin Montgomery sold his soul to the devil but was beheaded by a priest ending Calvin’s reign of terror. 

However, Calvin’s kin didn’t take to kindly to the priest separating Calvin from his head and killed the do-gooder which caused the town to come under a curse.  Now every All Hallow’s Eve the headless Calvin comes back and seeks out seven heads to send to hell.  Luckily the town has seven visitors that fit the bill.

Headless Horseman is pretty mindless, but what it lacks in originality it makes up for in a sense of fun.  It’s another of those films that grace the Sci-Fi Channel and the box proclaims that loudly and proudly.  Our characters are pretty much cardboard, but at least they don’t do much to make you hate them.  I can’t say the same for Grizzly Rage, which I looked at around the time this one crossed the review desk.  Headless might’ve been propelled a little higher because Grizzly was so terrible.

Richard Moll is the only star of note and does have bit of the old Uncle Vinnie look about him but he just yells and stomps through the role and earns his paycheck.  They have a genre shout out with his character’s name. 

The special effects for the headless horseman range from pretty bad CGI (especially his Jacuzzi to hell) to some creative makeup effects.  I kept expecting the story to have some different revelations about the horseman but what I thought might happen didn’t materialize.  It’s not high art but it did manage to entertain.

Headless Horseman is presented in fullscreen with only some trailers for special features.  

This film doesn’t have the great literary bent that Washington Irving provided, even thought this film claims that his story was whitewashed.  It can be good, goofy fun if it catches you in the right frame of mind.  Nothing to lose your head over (wakka, wakka, wakka).

Headless Horseman is now available at Amazon. As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.