A fun dark movie from before Burton jumped the shark. It has his signature style and the mood of the setting is excellent, enjoyed the casting, acting, plot, and pacing.
Great movie.
what in the world does “jumped the shark” mean?
In an episode of Happy Days, The Fonz goes water skiing, encounters a shark, and jumps over it in the water skis. It marked a moment of dramatic decline in the show’s overall quality, and the term has been used since for any such point in time where something is identifiably worse after a specific event.
It was a stunt, not a random encounter type of thing. Very hyped at the time.
The term “jumped the shark” has jumped the shark.
It deserves a read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
That’s a cool page, but you should try this one instead: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JumpingTheShark
That’s a good read, but all the pages shown as links from that page are also very interesting.
Relevant: https://xkcd.com/609/
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The term comes from an episode of happy days
Indeed it does. The term was coined by Jon Hein in reference to that fateful episode of Happy Days. He later created the website jumptheshark.com, which discussed similar moments in other shows.
The term and reference were in colloquial use long before the website.
Love it. The movie has excellent visuals and is scary but with a great sense of dark humor where appropriate. Just picked up the 4k release and ripped it to my plex server. Looking forward to watching it again shortly!
I’ve been waiting for a 4K release!
It’s great, IMHO. It really nails that feeling of impending doom. I love how the mystery unfolds and all the little breadcrumbs left for you to pick up on.
The acting is great. I actually think this is one of Johnny Depp’s last great roles before he got too big. He’s weird and quirky in a way that works for me.
Also the soundtrack is great. I just picked it up on vinyl because I like it so much.
Christopher Walken as the Headless Horseman? Fuck yeah!
Also Ray Park!
One of my favorite Halloween films. Great cast, well written, distinct style. Odd that a film that has such a creepy or horror vibe is sort of a “feel good” film in the end.
It’s pretty good. The visuals are iconic and it has some captivating moments. I personally didn’t enjoy Walken as the horseman as much. I think the costume design for him was just okay and because he’s so recognizable it takes me out of the movie a bit. Yes I acknowledge the rest of the cast is full of stars, perhaps I can’t articulate why I’m offput by the horseman. I think the teeth look silly rather than menacing.
I liked the story tweaks and I think the mystery was paced out nicely.
I remember liking it but I haven’t seen it in 25 years so I can’t say if my opinion still holds up
First thought seeing this? Iron Maiden 🤟
It’s a good movie, but not my favorite Burton film.
Love it! The iron maiden scene still gives me the creeps.
“Ichabod.”
Really liked it. I have it on blu-ray and watch it every October as part of my spooky movie series.
It’s great vintage Burton. Depp and Ricci both fit their roles perfectly.
Walken was a weird choice for the horseman, but he does a good job with it and despite being a little outside the norm for Burton film (I know he was also in Batman Returns) Walken doesn’t take away from the movie IMO.
This is the movie that awakened me to the fact that Christina Ricci wasn’t a kid anymore.
My dad and I watched a commentary on this movie (I don’t remember whether it was from a DVD or separate from the movie itself). One of the comments was about how, in a shot of the fireplace, they’d put great care into making sure a flare in the flames caused skulls or demon faces of some sort to show in the flames. Neither my dad nor I had noticed and we considered it too subtle to be worth the apparent effort, as the effect was very brief.
That is all I remember of the movie.
I had this movie on VHS.
One of my favorite Halloween movies!