The Hollow (2004 TV Movie) User Reviews

Reasonable Slash Movie

[claudio_carvalho · 5/10 · 7 January 2006]

In the city of the Sleepy Hollow, a descendant of Ichabod Crane is hunted by the Headless Horseman in the Halloween night.

This silly movie is a reasonable slash movie. There are some good special effects, and the big secret to have a good time is to shut down the brain and do not think while watching "The Hollow". There are many stupid lines, especially from the character of Karen that makes the movie funnier. I only recommend this movie for viewers that loves slash movies and do not have a better option to see. It is impressive the numbers of favorable reviews released for this movie in IMDb by users with only one review, just to promote "The Hollow". They probably will give lots of negative votes to this comment, but I would like to advise IMDb users that this procedure is adopted in many bad movie, to mislead the reader with good reviews. Pay attention on the number of reviews written by the reviewer. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Halloween Macabro" ("Macabre Halloween")

Not Entirely Hollow, Not Solid Either

[ghoulieguru · 4/10 · 18 January 2006]

File this one under: Great concept, mediocre execution. The story is about Ian Cranston, a High School kid who carries the bloodline of Ichabod Crane. As soon as Ian moves into Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman returns to life to finish the Cranes off once and for all. Kind of a neat little idea, and it could have been fun movie but the concept got lost somewhere along the line.

It's hard to pinpoint what's wrong with the Hollow. For the most part, it's shot pretty well. There are some scenes that are really dark and grainy, but for the most part the movie looks better than most of these low budget horror flicks. I can't really fault the actors, even though Nick Carter is nobody's idea of a talented thespian and whoever thought casting Judge Reinhold as a football coach should be fired immediately. But the movie is carried pretty solidly by hottie Kevin Zegers and the girl from 8 Simple Rules. The real standout as far as acting goes is Stacey Keach, who really seems to be having a lot of fun with the role of the old grave keeper. I can't fault the writing, because while it's a little clichéd at times, there is a solid pacing to the story.

I think the problem with this movie is that it doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. Part horror movie and part after school special, it winds up feeling like an R.L. Stine Goosebumps episode with some nudity in it. The Hollow's biggest flaw is that it's uneven. The next biggest flaw is the way the Headless Horseman looks. He has a head, for one thing... and it's a completely ridiculous looking pumpkin head. As it is, the Hollow is worth a rental if you're a fan of the old Disney cartoon and are interested in seeing a modern day retelling of the story. I don't plan on adding it to my collection, but if you have kids that are like in their early teens, they might enjoy watching it on Halloween night.

The only thing good about The Hollow...

[Monica4937 · 3/10 · 19 November 2004]

...was Kevin Zegers...and thats just because I'm biased. What I don't get is how someone can go from acting in an awesome film like the Dawn of the Dead remake to a crapfest like The Hollow. Granted, the film was geared more towards the younger audience (say 5-12 yr olds) But still...what the heck was up with the pumpkin head of the headless horseman? I could have designed something way better using papermache! Whatever...all in all this movie was lame with all the "amazing" special FX and the poor acting jobs done by Nick Carter and Kayley Cuoco. (I'm not adding Kevin Zegers in there because once again I'm being biased *wink*) If you are stuck babysitting your little sister or brother on halloween then this movie is OK, but I wouldn't actually sit down and purposely watch this movie if there are other "much better" films on at the same time. (yes I know I just did but, I've learned my lesson.) I give this movie a 3/10.

An OK Movie

[xgonexx · 26 October 2005]

The Hollow was an OK movie with OK acting. Rent it you could get a little freaked. Kaley Cuoco from TV's 8 Simple Rules is in it, as well as the Backstreet Boys' Nick Carter (Who does worse than Paris Hilton did in HOUSE OF WAX). The movie originally aired on ABC Family, which in my opinion, it shouldn't have, because it was kind of freaky for being a family movie. The TV rating is TV-14 (D,V,L,S) and the MPAA Rating for it is R (for some scary images and sexuality). So if it's rated R why is it considered a family movie? Anyway, THE HOLLOW is an OK movie which I would spend 4 bucks to rent or just watch it on ABC Family's "The Thirteen Nights Of Halloween" (airing from October 19 - October 31).

Hollow is the right word

[Erewhon · 2/10 · 26 October 2004]

This dreary, dull and badly-acted trifle trashes Washington Irving and his classic story. To begin with, the entire premise is that the original story is a HORROR story. It's nothing of the sort; it's a pleasant, funny "folk tale" that has a brief scary section.

The movie goes wrong so many ways it's a waste of time to list them all. But a short list would include that it's not remotely scary. It bears little resemblance to Washington Irving, though his name (and gravestone) are mentioned a lot. It takes forever to get going, and when it does, too much happens off screen. This is supposed to be New York in the fall, but all the trees are completely green, and most are evergreens, not the deciduous trees common around the real Sleepy Hollow. The lead actors are all very bad except for Stacy Keach and Judge Reinhold; it's interesting now to see Reinhold, who used to play geeky youths, is now playing the father of a geeky youth. But this geeky youth is drop-dead handsome, resembling Tom Welling. (Gee, do you think that was an accident?)

Finally, the headless horseman has a head.

Not worth watching!

[skareodesign · 1/10 · 31 August 2004]

I feel bad for anyone that is about to waste their lives to see this flick. I watched about 20 minutes of this film before getting weary and restless through lack of interest.

Unless you have an under-aged girlfriend, or you are babysitting for your cousin, you should NOT bother tuning into this when it hits a Television set near you.

If you're a Backstreet Boys fan, Nick Carter is in this flick, so why don't you go buy it just because you think he's hot. He would love to take some more of your parents' money.

To the directors of this film: Please, please, please... never release another movie into the public domain without at least trying to convey a positive message, or at least, an interesting plot.

One of the worst "horror" movies I've ever seen

[work4dvd · 1/10 · 30 August 2004]

It is very rare where I feel compelled to post a review (and I'm not going to waste much time on this drivel), but I just had to with "The Hollow" because this movie was one of the worst I've had the displeasure of sitting through. Horrid acting, characters you couldn't care less about, idiotic dialogue, almost total lack of suspense, and a silly horseman. The lighting was so bad (how many high schools are without glaring fluorescent lights?) to convey mood where the plot could not; it was probably intentional to hide the goofy horseman and amateurish effects. Stacy Keach's scenery-chewing performance was the only highlight to the movie, but even that grew tiresome.

It's no surprise that this is going to debut on ABC Family. It feels like a bad run-of-the-mill TV movie from beginning to end. Avoid if you're over thirteen years old. (One star out of ten.)

Going to Sleepy Hollow

[wes-connors · 3/10 · 12 October 2009]

"Restless spirits stir this Hollow's Eve, beckoning Ian Cranston (Kevin Zegers), the last blood relative of Ichabod Crane, back to 'Sleepy Hollow'. Thundering hooves unleash a wave of bone-chilling screams as the ghost of the 'Headless Horseman' rides again! Ian must try to save the town and his girlfriend, Karen (Kaley Cuoco), and determine whether the sword-wielding stalker is their clownish classmate Brody (Nick Carter) in costume, or the dark rider himself. If it's truly the 'Headless Horseman'… how do you kill what's already dead?" questions the DVD sleeve. Moreover, why not buy or rent Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow"?

This is a fairly limp update of Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", made for a young TV and video audience looking for Halloween thrills. Mr. Zegers and Ms. Cuoco are the good-looking couple pretending to be in high school. Looking heavier than in his singing "Backstreet Boy" days, Mr. Carter nevertheless ups the good hair quotient; he contributes "Blow Your Mind", a leftover CD track. Stacy Keach leads the small group of veterans picking up a paycheck. The funniest scene has a pumpkin-headed horseman helping "doctor" Blake Shields (as Rob) give "nurse" Shelley Bennett (as Erica) some real head.

*** The Hollow (8/25/04) Kyle Newman ~ Kevin Zegers, Kaley Cuoco, Nick Carter, Stacy Keach

Stink film, truly awful

[mr_pivac1985 · 2/10 · 25 April 2011]

The Hollow starts on the Eve of Halloween at the small American town of Sleepy Hollow where new resident Ian Cranston (Kevin Zegers) is driving along trying to impress a local bird named Karen (Kaley Cuoco) when he has to swerve to miss the local cemetery keeper Claus Van Ripper (Stacy Keach) who then tries to convince Ian that he is an actual descendant of Ichabod Crane (just watch Tim Burton's fantastic Sleepy Hollow (1999) to find out who he is) whom escaped the ghostly Headless Horseman many decades ago, so since Ian is technically a Crane the Headless Horseman decides he will take what he can get so he intends to kill Ian as some sort of revenge. Look, just don't ask. Annoyingly for the local population of Sleepy Hollow the Headless Horseman doesn't mind killing anyone who gets in his way, cue lots of American teenagers... yawn...

Directed by Kyle Newman who according to the IMDb credits casted himself as the 'Cool High School Dude' I personally thought The Hollow was rubbish, it's as simple & straight forward as that really. The script by co-producer Hans Rodionoff who also makes a cameo appearance in the finished film as a corpse 'borrows' heavily from Burton's wonderful Sleepy Hollow which The Hollow is inferior to in every single aspect. The first thing to say is that while Burton's film was a brilliant Gothic period who dun-nit murder mystery & by comparison The Hollow is a cheap, tacky, predictable contemporary teen slasher riddled with clichés, bad character's, poor dialogue & unconvincing CGI effects. The decision to move the ahem, 'action' to modern America & populate the cast with annoying teen stereotypes says it all really, this is lazy & uninspired film-making. Add to that the fact that the first 50 odd minutes are really slow, boring & dull which they most certainly are. Apart from the basic legend of the Headless Horseman which is quite a cool concept, a nice looking cast & one or two half decent scenes The Hollow has very little going for it.

Director Newman does nothing to impress, it's competent but little else. What's up with Stacy Keach's character anyway? He seems to know absolutely everything, when the Headless Horseman appears, what his weaknesses are, that Ian is a distant relation to Crane & just about everything else. There's not much gore & what there is totally revolves around decapitated heads & headless bodies. They couldn't afford the CGI effects to make the Headless Horseman headless so they stick a pumpkin on his stump to hide the actors head which looks about twice as large as a normal head, personally I feel cheated I mean this film is supposed to be all about a ghostly Headless Horseman & there technically isn't one. In fact I think they should have renamed him to the Pumpkinhead Horseman, well it has ring to it doesn't it & it would have been a more accurate description.

With a supposed of about $900,000 which I accept isn't much The Hollow is reasonably well made but you'll have probably forgotten it within a day. Quite how (once) respected actors like Keach & Judge Reinhold end up in bottom of the barrel crap like this is anyone's guess, the teenage cast are mostly annoying although some of the birds in this are good looking especially Erica played by Shelly Bennett who gets her head chopped off.

The Hollow is a pointless film really, Tim Burton has already made the perfect Headless Horseman film with Sleepy Hollow & what's left is just your less-than-average teen slasher film that fails to entertain or impress. Not one to rush out to see...

Headless Horseman

[kairingler · 6/10 · 28 July 2013]

first off I really enjoyed this movie,, sure it's' a little campy with a lot of teenagers and stuff, but other than that the story wasn't bad at all,, I love all of the camera shots of the Headless Horseman going by and killing people,, especially the scene on the bridge. STacey Keach and Eileen Brennan are also in this and I really loved those actors because it gives the film a more "legend" feel,, our main character a teenage boy finds out he is the great great grandson of Ichabod Crane, so dealing with that , him and a bunch of other teens see a Headless Horseman riding through town,, they have to figure out if the legend is real or is it one of their classmates playing a prank,, this was a fairly good movie,, I didn't have too many complaints.

Headless and clueless this movie is....

[m-d-kamutzki · 2/10 · 30 July 2005]

I saw this movie, hoping that it would have the same atmosphere as Sleepy Hollow, or at least comes near it. But in no respect does this movie has the quality like Sleepy Hollow. This movie does not really know what to be. It isn't a horror movie, because there was no blood and gore. It isn't a character driven movie: the acting is bad and no effort is made to ' deepen' the main characters. The horse man is really running around without a clue (almost headless); The person who has put the pumpkin in the script should be sacked immediately!!! It also isn't a special effects movie: I've never heard a horse running with such funny noises and the decapitated heads really look silly.

**Spoiler** The very irritating character in this movie, who runs around on a horse with his 'headless costume' and is acting so bad that you really hope he will die in a most horrible way, DOES NOT DIE!!! So doesn't the chick, the parents, nor the main character...

Go see a real horror movie....

Good Family TV Entertainment

[merlinslover · 10/10 · 31 August 2004]

The Hollow, as a modern take of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, has many parallels to the original story-many more than say, the version with Johnny Depp. This version will NOT be satisfactory to audiences who prefer slash and gore to horrify them, or that require high cost special effects. The young cast does an adequate job--honestly better than the older, veteran actors. Kaley Cuoco and Kevin Zegers are refreshing, and almost unbearably cute. Nick Carter is surprising in his first movie role. To quote Washington Irving, "full of fun and arrogance, more mischief than illwill" his Brody is at once menacing, arrogant and mesmerizing. He commands the screen. The sole veteran actor who makes steals the scene from the youngsters is Stacey Keach as Claus--we must see more of him. All in all, this is not a movie that would do well at theaters OR impress late teens, but it IS good TV family entertainment for Halloween.

Great horrible movie

[cwells-575-680347 · 7/10 · 30 October 2017]

You can't watch this movie with any seriousness because it's not supposed to be. It's really bad but that's what makes it so good, and if you're looking for a good drinking movie this is a great choice. The acting is over the top but again, you can't take this movie seriously. It's the kind of movie you can talk though and have fun with friends because it doesn't require any real need to pay close attention so it's great for parties.

the "hollow" truth

[waswas · 1/10 · 24 September 2004]

the most useless horror flick ever made to date. movies such as snow white was more scary. little red riding hood had a better plot. on the whole the worst way to spent 2 hours of your life. watching grass grow will give you more satisfaction. the movie has no dramatic scenes or suspense of any kind imaginable.

movies such as the ring where the plot stupid as it seems was justified and made a bit realistic, giving the viewer a scary image. it was not graphic but the sound and picture combined greatly gave an excellent depth. this movie, the hollow, is nothing revolutionary and does not live up to the standard of any movie in the era. low budget movies have ways of disguising the violence and reducing expensive (scary) scenes with sound and mainly suspense.

Okay slasher film

[eddy-28 · 25 October 2004]

Although, the tale of the Headless Horseman has been told in previous films, Kyle Newman's directorial effort for "The Hollow" is not bad, but not good either. Set in the modern day, The Hollow tells the story of a young teenager named Ian played by Kevin Zegers. Ian happens to be interested in a girl at the local highschool played by Kaley Cuoco. Although she is dating the highschool quaterback (Nick Carter) she falls in love with Ian. But things go wrong when Ian discovers he is the great-great grandson of Icahbod Crane, and on Halloween, the legend of the headless horseman rides again and begins a grisly slaughter against the teenagers of the town. It is up to Ian to stop him. The Hollow lacks suspense and some occasional bad acting, but the story and the musical score kept the film at pace. It was interesting to see Joseph Mazzolo in a film, since he has not been familiar in films since "Jurassic Park". Also Stacy Keach steels the film has the mysterious graveyard keeper who knows the secret of the horseman and Ian's past, and it was nice to see Judge Reinhold as the abusive father type and Oscar nominee Eileen Brennan (Private Benjamin), as usual, looking mean and cruel. Above all, The Hollow, really could have used a tad more originality and maybe shifted a little bit instead of the standard teen slasher film, but you can't except much from a film such as this.

Scary? No. Accidentally Funny? Yes

[Lelo34 · 1/10 · 10 November 2005]

First off, any movie that has Judge Reinhold as a main character should be immediately pulled off the shelf. Secondly movies like this really shouldn't try and follow 2 story lines. The Headless Horseman, and a strained father, son dynamic? Why? What's the point? Terrible, Terrible movie. There is some decent eye candy as far as ladies, but they make the least attractive the main character, maybe in this cast Kaley Cuocco passed as the only one who could act? Stacey Keach as the drunken grave keeper was pretty funny, what with his tossing "ye" in there every once in a while. All in all, it seems like more and more horror movies have you rooting for the characters to die, instead of rooting for them to escape. Someone needs to realize that having characters that are as annoying as nails on a chalkboard doesn't make for a very riveting, tension filled, horror movie

Very By the Book

[mooncat335 · 3/10 · 11 February 2008]

Although not as hideously bad as I had expected, 'The Hollow' is a very paint-by-numbers film. I give it points for a)having some kind of budget, b)the acting generally wasn't awful and c)it had Judge Reinhold in it but other than that, it was your average disappointing 'horror', and I use the term 'horror' loosely.

The film is very obviously riding on the success of Tim Burton's 'Sleepy Hollow'. Those of you who have actually read Washington Irving's short story will know that most of the characters that Tim Burton put into 'Sleepy Hollow' were not in the original story, it is very heavily embellished. 'The Hollow' tried to make out that the residents of the town were all descendants of the added in characters from Burton's film, the most obvious being Van Ripper, the grubby lunatic who tends the graveyard. (Van Ripper was the coachman in Sleepy Hollow)

In the first few scenes of the film, we come to realise that this film is just another Scream/I Know What you did Last Summer/The Faculty clone. Sexy teens Nick Carter the football jock and Kaley Cuoco the cheerleader are mucking about in Sleepy Hollow's graveyard when their friend gets his head cut off by an unseen murderer. Cue Tom Welling lookalike 'Ian Cranston', who we find out is a direct descendant of Ichabod Crane and is the only person who can stop the Horseman chopping heads at random on Halloween.

Most of the dialogue is pointless and badly written, as are many of the scenes (Nick Carter's Legend-obsessed character repeately dressing up as the Horseman attempting to scare people gets old very quickly). The action and horror are boring anmd unbelievable, and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the Headless Horseman was supposed to be without a head. This Horseman has a deformed pumpkin with glowing eyes for a head. It looks more like an onion. The pathetic action comes to an abrupt end in one of the most rubbish finales I've ever seen. If you want a more thrilling story, go and read the book.

Entertaining enough for what it was...

[paul_haakonsen · 5/10 · 27 December 2015]

This movie is listed as horror, but it wasn't particularly scary. "The Hollow" has a very family-TV-movie feel to it. That being said, don't get me wrong here, because it is still an entertaining movie nonetheless.

Without going too much into details about the storyline, then I assume that it is safe to say that you are already familiar with the story of Ichabod Crane and the headless horseman. In this 2004 version the story is set in modern day time with the descendants of Ichabod Crane having to stop the marauding horseman as he strikes terror upon their town.

"The Hollow" is the type of family horror movie you would watch with the family on Halloween for a wholesome family scare. Although there are some visuals that would be disturbing and unfit for small children.

The acting in the movie was alright, and there is a number of familiar faces on the cast list; Kaley Cuoco, Stacy Keach, Nicholas Turturro, Eileen Brennan and Judge Reinhold.

While "The Hollow" is an adequately entertaining movie, it wasn't outstanding in comparison to other movies based on the legend of the headless horseman.

"Excuse me but this hay stinks." As does this film...

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 2 January 2007]

The Hollow starts on the Eve of Halloween at the small American town of Sleepy Hollow where new resident Ian Cranston (Kevin Zegers) is driving along trying to impress a local bird named Karen (Kaley Cuoco) when he has to swerve to miss the local cemetery keeper Claus Van Ripper (Stacy Keach) who then tries to convince Ian that he is an actual descendant of Ichabod Crane (just watch Tim Burton's fantastic Sleepy Hollow (1999) to find out who he is) whom escaped the ghostly Headless Horseman many decades ago, so since Ian is technically a Crane the Headless Horseman decides he will take what he can get so he intends to kill Ian as some sort of revenge. Look, just don't ask. Annoyingly for the local population of Sleepy Hollow the Headless Horseman doesn't mind killing anyone who gets in his way, cue lots of American teenagers... yawn...

Directed by Kyle Newman who according to the IMDb credits casted himself as the 'Cool High School Dude' I personally thought The Hollow was rubbish, it's as simple & straight forward as that really. The script by co-producer Hans Rodionoff who also makes a cameo appearance in the finished film as a corpse 'borrows' heavily from Burton's wonderful Sleepy Hollow which The Hollow is inferior to in every single aspect. The first thing to say is that while Burton's film was a brilliant Gothic period who dun-nit murder mystery & by comparison The Hollow is a cheap, tacky, predictable contemporary teen slasher riddled with clichés, bad character's, poor dialogue & unconvincing CGI effects. The decision to move the ahem, 'action' to modern America & populate the cast with annoying teen stereotypes says it all really, this is lazy & uninspired film-making. Add to that the fact that the first 50 odd minutes are really slow, boring & dull which they most certainly are. Apart from the basic legend of the Headless Horseman which is quite a cool concept, a nice looking cast & one or two half decent scenes The Hollow has very little going for it.

Director Newman does nothing to impress, it's competent but little else. What's up with Stacy Keach's character anyway? He seems to know absolutely everything, when the Headless Horseman appears, what his weaknesses are, that Ian is a distant relation to Crane & just about everything else. There's not much gore & what there is totally revolves around decapitated heads & headless bodies. They couldn't afford the CGI effects to make the Headless Horseman headless so they stick a pumpkin on his stump to hide the actors head which looks about twice as large as a normal head, personally I feel cheated I mean this film is supposed to be all about a ghostly Headless Horseman & there technically isn't one. In fact I think they should have renamed him to the Pumpkinhead Horseman, well it has ring to it doesn't it & it would have been a more accurate description.

With a supposed of about $900,000 which I accept isn't much The Hollow is reasonably well made but you'll have probably forgotten it within a day. Quite how (once) respected actors like Keach & Judge Reinhold end up in bottom of the barrel crap like this is anyone's guess, the teenage cast are mostly annoying although some of the birds in this are good looking especially Erica played by Shelly Bennett who gets her head chopped off.

The Hollow is a pointless film really, Tim Burton has already made the perfect Headless Horseman film with Sleepy Hollow & what's left is just your less-than-average teen slasher film that fails to entertain or impress. Not one to rush out to see...

The Hollow

[Scarecrow-88 · 3/10 · 16 January 2016]

If there was a way to make the Headless Horseman boring, then "The Hollow" done so. What a yawner! Taking place where the legend was born, the local caretaker (played by Stacey Keach who has certainly seen better days in his career, adding a lot of "Ye" to his sentences, trying to apply an accent that is laughable) tells a high school kid named Ian (teen heartthrob Kevin Zegers) he is the descendant of Ichabod Crane and that the Headless Horseman will be coming after him! At first a bit skeptical, Ian will soon be convinced when teenagers turn up missing, their heads lopped off by the Horseman's sword.

This dull affair might be interesting for fans of Kaley Cuoco, as she portrays a love interest of Zegers, a hot cheerleader who has decided to usurp boy-band pop star Nick Carter's romantic advances (when Carter is a bully to you, might want to check your man card!). Judge Reinhold is positively wasted as Zegers' football coach father (he demands Ian's joining the football team, but his boy wants to fence instead), getting a little screen time as a pushy authoritarian whose demands are often unrequited. He even has to give up the remote to the wifey when she wants to watch a horror film on Halloween night. There's the hayride and Ichabod Sleepy Hollow ghost stories which Ian provides to townsfolk which take up time in the film but fail to elicit much in the way of creeps or thrills. Cuoco's character is refreshing in that she prefers Ian's nerd over Carter's jock. Later in the film, Cuoco is dressed in white face paint and a ghost bed sheet during the hayride "night of scares", having to follow behind Ian as the Headless Horseman (its jack-o-lantern head a rather unimpressive CGI creation) looks to chop off their heads. There's this bridge that seems to work as kryptonite against the Horseman. A tame sex season has a lady getting the down under treatment, with the felatio interrupted by the Horseman who takes off the guy's head. Carter and Zegers at odds over Cuoco gets plenty of rub, obviously. And you drunk graveyard caretaker Keach, looking worse for wear, telling anybody that will listen to get to safety as the Horseman was on the loose, doing the "Crazy Ralph" shtick (the "You're all doomed!" character from Friday the 13th).

Shabbily produced and nary much in the way of severed head carnage, "The Hollow" craps out and never raises much in the way of chills. Skip this and watch "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" instead. Worth a look if you want to see Cuoco in a skimpy cheerleader outfit, but the thrills end there.

I pretty much lost my own head every time Kaley Cuoco showed up!

[Weirdling_Wolf · 7/10 · 20 April 2022]

Excepting the glaring fact that the gallopingly grisly head-chopping nemesis of the sadly neglected noughties horror film 'The Hollow' would, perhaps, better suit the more cumbrous moniker of 'oversized Pumpkin-headed rider', Kyle Newman's frequently fun, teen-creamingly pulpy, B-monster update of the spooky Washington Irving classic is not without its own macabre merit. While bloodily anchored to a standard slasher plot, with its preternaturally perky, bodaciously buxom, uber-Karen cheerleader (Kaley Cuoco), lunk-headed jock, played with effortless verisimilitude by Nick Carter, and a truly epic doom-auguring graveyard caretaker in the crusty guise of bonkers booze-hound Klaus Von Ripper (Stacy Keach), and the earnest, floppy-haired, flouncily-inclined, fleet-footed fencing hero Ian Cranston (Kevin Zegers) who unsettlingly discovers that he is the descendent of the legendary Ichabod Crane, and on one fateful Halloween night, pretty boy Cranston must bravely bring the uncommonly ghoulish, cranium-collecting creep to his Scooby Doom! With a surprisingly eclectic cast, including a weirdly authoritarian turn from 80s icon Judge Reinhold, a deliciously bizarre cameo by the delightful Eileen 'Private Benjamin' Brennan, striking creature design by the iconic FX guru Gabe Bartalos, its playful pantomime spookiness and likeable cast, 'The Hollow' is arguably far less of an empty experience than you might think. Granted, some horror fans might balk at the The Hollow's lack of outrageous gore, I still righteously dug on its creepy-creaky throwback monster movie vibes, and, quite frankly, I pretty much lost my own head every time Kaley Cuoco showed up!

Crap but innocent crap

[movieman_kev · 3/10 · 21 April 2012]

Ian, the last known relative of Ichabod Crane is terrorized by the seemingly mystical Headless Hourseman. He, along with the slightly slutty Karen (Kaley Cuoco of ' Big Bang Theory' fame) must save the town from whomever or whatever the Horseman is while dealing with Karen's jealous boyfriend, jock Brodie.

As far as films in the 'teen scream' genre go, this one isn't too blatantly awful, however it's so utterly forgettable that it slipped my mind that I had already seen it two years before I saw it this time. Pretty bad acting by Kaley, the others are not master thespians either, but she stands out the most. In fact the only conceivable reason to catch this one is the always watchable Stacey Keach in the thankless role of Ian's father.

My Grade: D+

Good, campy fun

[despitethesnow · 8/10 · 1 November 2007]

The Hollow is the kind of film you watch with a bunch of friends and family who have a good sense of humor. The story uses the archetypal Headless Horseman theme and does a silly bit with poor Washington Irving's grave, but Stacey Keach is priceless as the curmudgeonly Klaus Van Ripper. The name alone is a hoot. What makes this film better ,for me anyway, is that my family and I visit Sleepy Hollow every Halloween for their Legend Weekend festivities. The original Keach character still gives tours of the Old Dutch Church where the bridge used to be and we got some great photographs of him amongst the graves of the Van Alan family. Anyhow, The Hollow, despite some gratuitous gore is not a bad escape for a rainy night and a bowl of popcorn. In addition, the hayride in the film is actually modeled after the Haunted Hayride in Sleepy Hollow that the local High School has been hosting for years.

Better than at first glance

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 7/10 · 25 August 2015]

Having been told of his family legacy, a young teen descendant of Ichabod Crane learns the legend of the Headless Horseman is true and out hunting the townspeople's Halloween celebrations forcing him to stop the legendary killer.

Overall this was quite a decent enough slasher. One of the better elements in this one is the rather smart story here that's much better than expected here, managing to tie up some rather intriguing storyline within the legend and making it seem realistic here that the events of the legend really happened here which forces this one into some rather intriguing scenes here. There's a lot of fun here in the opening with the telling of the story setting up the cemetery joke as well as the resulting encounter with the killer out near the shark setting up the story nicely, and the early tormenting really bring this along nicely as there's plenty to like here in this section. That in turn allows the second half to focus on a nearly non-stop series of stalking scenes beginning with the hayride sequence where the real horseman appears alongside the play one leading to some absolutely chilling scenes here going through the graveyard from the horse-bound killer whole trying to protect his girlfriend at the same time. The finale itself is another big plus with the final retelling of the prophecy come true as the big house confrontation to set that up comes off rather well, but this leads into the first of the big problems here. The low-budget nature of this one here is patently obvious throughout which is the single most damaging one here, rendering the supposedly scary being into a cheap, flimsy mask that does little better than the play-version of the killer, the kills are all off-screen due to a lack of showing off the body aftermath and a seriously short running time that keeps this one based around only a few scenes here as there's barely any room in the lot to really stretch out proceeds here which causes this to feel rushed along at the majority of the big encounters while dragging out the other scenes since there's little time to do that with the budget it is. The other big flaw here for this one is the series of constantly irritating jokes throughout here which tends to wear thin here showing off nothing but their treatment of him as an outsider in town, which isn't all that impressive and simply gets boring. After these, there's not a whole lot really wrong here.

Rated R: Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.

Rewatch a movie you actually enjoy before wasting your time on this stinker

[JRose553 · 2/10 · 23 October 2013]

I won't say much other than this movie was very boring, the script and acting was terrible, and I'm sorry that I bothered starting this movie that I turned off after sixty minutes.

I understand that the actors have to work with what they are given, but Kaley Cuoco has come a long way in the past ten years. I don't know why directors insist on making main female characters in horror flicks so annoying.

Stacy Keach was hamming it up, all in the name of a paycheck. Kevin Zegers did a fine job, at least for the first half, and thank goodness Nick Carter has a different day job. I would have rather watched him sing and dance for an hour than to have watched this garbage.