The Headless Horseman in "Headless Horseman"
courtesy of Sci Fi
"Headless Horseman" (Sci Fi Channel)

To add to the touch of chill in the air, the Sci Fi Channel is showing "Headless Horseman" this month. It is not the typical version of the Washington Irving tale, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," but rather a story about a backwoods Missouri town. The cast is largely unknown save for Richard Moll of "Night Court," but they manage to make this horror fest scary and intriguing.

The film starts out with a group of seven students headed to a Halloween party. They are running late so they decide to take a shortcut off the interstate. Of course this takes them into the area of "Wormwood Ridge," a town time has forgotten. There they have a flat tire and have to have the van they are in towed into town.

It doesn't take long for the seven young people to learn there is a curse on the town and that a "headless" hunter is looking for seven new heads. He has to gather them before midnight or he and the town will disappear. Let's see, he needs seven heads and there are seven students stranded in town. Looks like the kids have been elected to fill the bill.

Moll plays a grizzly storekeeper who has a library in the back of his shop. It is there that the book explaining all this is kept. Moll just snarls at the college students and tells them the headless man will cut off their heads in due time.

The movie has enough blood and violence to make it a real thriller. The characters are dumber than dirt but somehow they manage to hold your interest. From the start you can guess who is going to lose their heads and who is going to survive.

The movie is not as explicitly gory as some of the horror movies out today but it still has the same thrill quotient as the first "Halloween" and "Nightmare On Elm Street" flicks. 

""Headless Horseman" is a fun thriller that won't scare you too badly - but enough! It is being featured this month on the Sci Fi Channel. Check your local listings for time and date.
 

 

 

 

 

©2007 Jackie K. Cooper

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