Sleepy Hollow movie corrections

Mistakes

When Ichabod and young Mazbeth are in the shop looking for information and they find the boy's father's will, Ichabod's hair changes from a neat bob to really messy and scruffy three or four times each time the shot moves away from him then back again. See more...

Trivia

I recognized the sword twirl that The Horseman does from somewhere, but couldn't place it. Take a look at the credits - one of the actors who plays The Horseman when he's got no head is Ray Park, ie. Darth Maul from Episode 1, who does exactly the same lightsabre twirl once or twice. And another Star Wars link - recognize one of the village elders? Senator Palpatine/The Emperor, no less. See more...

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Movie Mistakes blog

Sleepy Hollow (1999) - 22 corrections

Directed by Tim Burton, starring Casper Van Dien, Christina Ricci, Christopher Lee, Christopher Walken, Ian McDiarmid, Jeffrey Jones, Johnny Depp, Michael Gambon, Michael Gough, Miranda Richardson, Richard Griffiths (add more)

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.

Corrections

The Stepmother shoots Ichabod, and a couple of scenes later we find out (surprise, surprise) that he is still alive. However, he shows no signs of pain and is able to struggle and fight with the stepmother perfectly well. There is never again any indication that he has ever been shot. [The bullet lodged in the book that Katrina gave him, so, while the force of the impact knocked him to the ground, he was never actually wounded. So, basically, there's never any indication that he was shot because, he wasn't.]

Corrected by Tailkinker

Near the beginning Ichabod claims 'the millennium is almost upon us' - yet it's only 1799, 200 years early. [Ichabod wanted his statement to be as dramatic as powerful, and chose to point to the millennium change instead to the much closer centennial change, to emphasize his point about adopting modern methods. Also, "almost" is a very relative term. From our point of view (living in a fast-paced world) 200 years is a long time, but when looking at the entire history of the human race, 200 years is a trifle.]

Corrected by Twotall

When Braum and Ichabod come across the headless horseman near the bridge together, the horseman stabs Ichabod in his shoulder and uses it to lift and throw him a good distance away. Even if the sword went all the way through Ichabod, he is still too heavy to be flipped over like that. The sword which is sharp enough to cut off heads with ease should have gone right through him and split his shoulder in two. [When Ichabod was stabbed with the sword, the horseman drove it into him on a straight angle like this [- -] with the sharp edges on the left and right not like this [|] with the sharp edges up and down meaning that it was possible for the horseman to use it to flip Ichabod over his shoulder.]

Corrected by Spaceboy_007

The map and the scenes of the town show that Sleepy Hollow is on the east bank of the Hudson River, the same as New York City. However, when Johnny Depp is shown going between New York and Sleepy Hollow, he follows a route on the west bank of the river. [The road could easily have crossed the river several times during the trip, as Sleepy Hollow appears to be some distance from New York.]

Time

Daredevil is expressed as the name of the Horseman's horse, but in the actual Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Irving Washington Daredevil is the name of Brom van Brunt (Brom Bones) horse. [This is a discrepancy between the book and the film, not a film mistake. There are too many others to mention - apart from the title and one or two character names, this film bears no resemblance to the Irving Washington story at all.]

This film is set in 1799, but the kind of optical effect that Ichabod Crane used with the cardinal in the cage, the thaumatrope, was invented in 1825. [It was OFFICIALLY invented in 1825. Apparently Ichabod's mother invented it, but they never patented it or showed it around much, so it did not become known to the public.]

Corrected by Twotall

Ichabod figures out that the headless body thought to be of Lady Van Tassel couldn't be her because the cut on the hand showed "No bloodflow, no clotting, no healing... When this cut was made...this woman was already dead". Yet in Lady Van Tassel's flashback of her decapitating Sarah and cutting her hand there is an unforgettably orangish stream of blood coming out of the dead girl's wound. This image clashes with his observation. [Of course blood would leave the wound, because the blood was already there in the veins. However, the heart would no longer be beating in the girl, which would stop the bloodflow from continuing, and eventually clotting and partially healing, like the hand of Lady Van Tassel.]

In the starting scene when Peter van Garret (Martin Landau) sees the scarecrow from the carriage window he is looking out of the left side of the carriage, but the shot of the scarecrow is as if he is looking out of the right. [He looked out to the viewers' left; his right.]

Time

More than once the Headless Horseman ignores Ichabod Crane because he wasn't after him, however he kills the midwife's son just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It doesn't make sense. [As we don't see the specific instruction, we don't know precisely what orders the Horseman had. However, as both Elizabeth Killian (the midwife) and her husband need to be eliminated, it's likely that the Horseman was simply told to take out the Killians, rather than referring to them by individual name - this instruction would include the child.]

Corrected by Tailkinker

In the starting scene when Peter van Garret (Martin Landau) sees the scarecrow from the carriage window, a lot of time passes until he's jumping out of the carriage (about two minutes).When he flies through the maize-field, he reaches the scarecrow in a few seconds. I don't think that an old man is faster than four horses. [In such large fields its more than likely the farmer has more than 1 scarecrow.]

Time

The Headless Horseman died in 1779 when the two little girls (who were about 6) make noise to get him killed. The grown up little girl (Miranda Richardson) in 1799 is much older than 26. [We have no idea how old the girls actually are - many short thin people look much younger than their true age. The girls could easily be at least 10.]

Time

Katrina's mother-in-law used the Horseman to kill everyone to get her revenge and then inherit everything. The problem lies in the fact that she had faked her own death. How could she return after everyone else was dead to claim the inheritance, without causing suspicion? Last I checked, returning from the grave would cause more than a few raised eyebrows. [Revenge being the main issue she may not have thought that far. Even if she did there's always inherit, disguise, liquidate, and move to a big city.]

Right at the very beginning, after the Headless Horseman's first victim, the coach driver, is beheaded, Martin Landau looks out of the coach window to see the headless body 'as stiff as a board' sitting upright in the driver's seat. In reality his body would be limp and probably have slumped forwards or sideways and rolled off the coach. [A body killed instantly, in shock before death is possible to enter a rigor mortis like state at the time of death.]

Time

When Johnny takes his pet cardinal out and releases it, it is obviously a made up Java Rice Sparrow (a common cage bird) and not a cardinal. [It is never claimed that the bird is a cardinal and not a cage bird.]

Time

We are told that the horseman filed his teeth to a point to look more fearsome, but when we see the horseman's skull, its teeth are perfect. [The skull's teeth are sharpened, as seen in 1:24:00, when Katrina's stepmother is raising the Horseman. They may have dulled from being buried underground for twenty years, but they're still not normal teeth.]

Time

When we first see Ichabod's mother, she is drawing markings in the sand. Look at the stick she is using. When later in the movie we watch Katrina draw the same kind of markings, she is drawing with the same stick as Ichabod's mother [Of course she is using a stick that looks the same, to underline the connection between the magic of his mother and Katrina.]

At the church scene, the horsemen spears Christina Ricci's dad with a pole, it is a pretty smooth pole that has nothing to catch on to the body, so that when he tugs on it that fast, the man wouldn't have come with it, it would have just slipped out. [Gross as it is, the pole would have stayed due to suction and tissue trauma swelling. That's why first aid teaches you never to remove something that impales a person, but to leave it for a doctor.]

Corrected by Grumpy Scot Time

When Ichabod is riding his horse at night, and the "horseman" rides after him with the pumpkin, you can see that the pumpkin is not lit, and even if it was, it would have been blown out by the speed of the horse. Then, right before the horseman throws it, it is fully lit and catches leaves on fire. [The pumpkin is lit the whole time. It's just harder to tell when it's in the distance.]

Corrected by Jez Time

No one in Sleepy Hollow bats an eye at Christina Ricci being a "good witch". This certainly seems unlikely given the time frame of the movie. [She doesn't exactly parade the fact that she does spells. And during the confusion of the church scene, people were too frightened of the horseman to be noticing her.]

Corrected by Jez

In the windmill scene, the lantern was dropped in an abandoned windmill. What could've caused the whole windmill to explode? Don't tell me that the sacks they moved are full of gunpowder. [Actually, flour can, and often does, explode. As recently as 1979 a huge industrial mill in Germany blew up due to a dust explosion.]

Corrected by Ioreth

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Sleepy Hollow (1999) - 22 corrections

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