A socially awkward, raven-haired “hero” gets ferried to a new place and finds themselves at the center of a murder-riddled mystery. To stop the bloodshed, said person – who happens to have a penchant for tailored, black outfits and jazzy white collars – sets out to find the elusive monster brutally offing the locals…
I’m talking about Tim Burton’s brilliant gothic fantasy Sleepy Hollow, which was released 25 years ago today (November 19), but I could just as easily have been summing up the plot to the hit show Wednesday, in which the filmmaker directs multiple episodes. I was struck by the similarities between the two titles when I rewatched the 1999 movie recently, and now I’m wondering how the Headless Horseman could cameo in the second season of the aforementioned Netflix series.
Starring the likes of Michael Gambon, Christina Ricci, and Johnny Depp, Sleepy Hollow follows squeamish, skeptical New York police constable Ichabod Crane, as he’s sent to the titular settlement upstate to investigate a trio of peculiar deaths. “The three were slain in open ground, their heads were found severed from their bodies,” he mumbles to Sleepy Hollow’s de-facto leader Baltus, when quizzed on what his superiors told him. “Their heads were not found severed, their heads were not found at all,” Jeffrey Jones’ pastor snaps back, expertly setting the film’s eerie, tongue-in-cheek tone in just a few short words.
Christopher Walken’s Horseman is comparable to Wednesday’s Hyde, who turns out to be the eponymous Addams’ love interest Tyler (Hunter Doohan). In Wednesday’s world, hydes are mutated outcasts whose quickness to violence has led to their banishment from Nevermore Academy. In Sleepy Hollow, the Horseman is explained to have been a brutal mercenary who was chased out of the village and executed by its people during the American Revolutionary War; his gravesite on the outskirts of its territory haunting them ever since.
While both entities do seem to enjoy killing, their most interesting likeness, perhaps, is that both mythical meanies are revealed in their respective titles to have masters hiding in plain sight: botany teacher Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci, tying them together even more strongly) and Miranda Richardson’s Lady Van Tassel. Turns out, Wednesday’s Thornhill is actually Laurel Gates, the missing sister of the late Garrett Gates, who wants to kill off Jericho’s outcasts and carry out her dead family’s wishes, while Lady Van Tassel is actually Mary Archer, who plots to take over Sleepy Hollow and avenge her family after they were fatally shunned when she was a child. The two women use supernatural means to control Tyler and the Hessian mercenary to do their bidding.
The outings are close in aesthetics and setting, too, with Wednesday’s Hyde and Sleepy Hollow’s Horseman both wreaking havoc in shadowy, gnarled tree-filled woods. The instantly recognizable Danny Elfman scores don’t help set them apart either. At their cores, though, Wednesday and Sleepy Hollow are about buried wounds; the insidious, corrupting power of bitterness and entitlement, and how the real monsters aren’t always who you think they are.
Mysterious and spooky
One season in, and Wednesday definitely skews more family friendly than Sleepy Hollow, but I’m hoping it might get a little darker in the upcoming installment. “I think the feel that we’re going for is a little bit more horror-inspired,” lead actor Jenna Ortega told Vanity Fair, citing that Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death was a big inspiration for season 2.
If so, I can only hope that Wednesday proves to be a gateway horror for kids nowadays, in the same way Sleepy Hollow was for me way back when. Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography is gorgeous, as is the production and costume design’s stark color palette. I have such strong, fond memories of watching it at sleepovers when I was a youngster, cowering behind a pillow when Ichabod and co rush inside the nearby chapel to escape the Horseman – his steed’s feet pounding rhythmically on the floor like a ticking timebomb as he approaches the holy place – and his wildly swinging axe. I’d squeal when that fence post burst through the window (and a second later, Gambon’s chest) or when Ichabod came face-to-face with the spine-tinglingly creepy Crone Witch.
But Burton, writer Andrew Kevin Walker, and Depp deftly weaved romance and some campy humor in there, too, relieving the tension by cutting to Ichabod’s teacup and saucer jingling in his shaking hands as he’s told the legend of the Horseman or him struggling to ride his newly appointed horse Gunpowder. “You moved the body? You must never move the body!” Crane berates the Hollow’s medical professional. “Why?” the doc asks, to which Ichabod simply shouts, “Because!” and storms off. It’s a gag that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Carry On movie. With that, the whole thing is the perfect showcase of Burton’s macabre, silly fun – and one of his very best.
For more, check out our breakdown of the most exciting upcoming horror movies or keep an eye on the latest Addams Family news with our guide to Wednesday season 2.