Locus Focus: Sleepy Hollow (movie)

This is a great meme hosted by Shredded Cheddar.



Today is about describing scary settings from a movie and I chose the village of Sleepy Hollow from the movie Sleepy Hollow (1999.)

I absolutely love the village of Sleepy Hollow as presented in this movie. This Dutch settlement is isolated from the world, the population is scarce and the town is so disconcertingly silent. The only sounds come from animals, sheep and crows, and the crows definitely add to the eerie atmosphere. The skies are always gray, mists are always present and the sun is a stranger to this village.



There is a reason why this village is such a deserted, unwelcoming, gloomy place – people have been killed and everyone blames the Headless Horseman, the evil spirit of a dead Hessian who was left without his dead and is now searching for it by claiming other people’s heads. Whenever he is about to come to the village, a strange silence descends upon the sleepy village, mists seem to freeze in place and then comes the neighing of his demonic horse and the hissing of his sharp blade from hell. I said that the village is sleepy, which is true, but the thing is that this village cannot seem to be able to wake up from a nightmare.

The village is located on the brink of a mysterious, creepy forest and in one part of the forest where only barren trees grow is the so-called “Tree of the Dead”, a portal between hell and Sleepy Hollow, and the portal is used by the Headless Horseman.



The village has a graveyard and, this being such a small village, the graveyard seems to contribute to one half of the village, which adds to the freakishness and gloom of this isolated world. There are quite a few delightful details added, for example a scarecrow with a grinning pumpkin head. Sleepy Hollow truly is a dark, scary place.