SLEEPY HOLLOW

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When I was seventeen I owned, for some reason, a Sleepy Hollow t-shirt. I could not tell you where I got it but it was a black t-shirt with the words "Heads Will Roll" across the top and a big print of the headless horseman above the title. Not only did I have this shirt, but I would wear this shirt. Out and about. I was seventeen. I would just get about in the world in a Sleepy Hollow t-shirt. And not in any kind of Nightmare Before Christmas goth-kid kind of way. Just in a ‘did that kid find that shirt?’ kind of way. I would hit Westpoint Shopping Centre wearing chunky Diadora sneakers, green cargo pants and a Sleepy Hollow t-shirt and be like “What’s up, I’m here to hang out.”

The cultural impact of Sleepy Hollow is near on non-existent. Aside from that shirt (which I swear to God I only got rid of a couple of years ago) this Tim Burton/Johnny Depp team up has all but faded from history. Sleepy Hollow is the story of Ichabod Crane, a scaredy-cat cop who loves science who in 1799 travels to town of Sleepy Hollow to solve some local decapitation murders. There are some awesome sets, great costumes, Casper Van Dien and it all kind of adds up to nothing more than fairy floss. Dissolving on impact.

Sleepy Hollow is another one of those movies where the whole time I’m wishing it was better. I would love to enjoy this movie and watch it over and over because the headless horseman scares the shirt of me. Dude is creepy as. He doesn’t have a bloody head on him. And he’s on a horse. He’s got no head and he’s on a horse. This creep can do anything. He always appears at the end of a bridge at night and just stares at you even though that’s impossible because he doesn’t have a head. That’s so creepy! Also creepy: a teenage boy in a t-shirt with the headless horseman on it.

Now, what would it be like if I were in Sleepy Hollow? Let’s put me in there at the age when I was wearing the most Sleepy Hollow merchandise humanly possible. Seventeen-year-old me prided myself on being an absolute cut-up. You best believe I will never forget the time in Modern History when my teacher Mr. Pobjoy was going around the class asking people how they might use the internet for research purposes and I was sitting there with a weapon’s grade response in my back pocket ready to go. “Peter, what’s something you can look up on the internet?” I fired back, quick as a flash “Porn.” I could do stand-up comedy for a hundred years and never kill that hard again. So let’s put that seventeen-year-old in Sleepy Hollow.