Personal Background
Most of you probably caught this film when it aired on Cartoon Network in the early to mid 2000s, that was my situation. CN stopped airing the film after a few years, but it still remained fresh in my mind, like I could remember exact details from it rather than embellish them and surprise myself when I go to see it and wind up seeing something different (Spider-Man, Arachnophobia, you won me with your apparent cheesiness). The only problem was at the time it was hard to find the movie online, but luckily someone was generous enough to upload the movie onto YouTube (in 2015 though, long after I gave up trying to find it.)
Film Background
Little information exists on this film, at least as far as casual research goes. It seems to have been a direct-to-video release that wound up on television one way or another (I knew Cartoon Network had nothing to do with the special because if it was, Warner Bros. would've had involvement in it (WB and Cartoon Network are managed by the same parent company). So who spearheaded this film? Porchlight Entertainment.
Porchlight primarily produced direct-to-video movies, but you may recognize them best for their television efforts. They were the principal producers of The Secret Saturdays and have done work centered on LeapFrog (remember that?), though some may better remember them for Tutenstein, one of the few cartoons that aired on Discovery Kids (who's cartoons apparently exploited loopholes to avoid becoming generic educational shows.) Or if you want some better perspective on how good the show was, it was nominated for three Daytime Emmy awards and won two of them. Impressive for a mid to average budget company from Southern California.
The film was directed by Vong Zeven, who hasn't done anything else apparently. I would say he worked at Porchlight, but any other project he would've worked on for them would surely be credited.
Plot
If you didn't get enough clues early on, the film is an adaptation of the famous legend of the Headless Horseman. Given that multiple ones exist, a little differentiation would be beneficial, and yes, there is enough to make the film stand on its own. This time it focuses on the pumpkin atop the Headless Horseman. It may seem silly, but given the creepy possibilities of pumpkin carving, along with, ahem, aimed at a young audience, I think they made the right call.
Given that murder was a focal point of the original story (Ichabod Crane), and who this movie is catered toward, you'd think they'd shy away from showing his death, right?
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| Well not exactly. |
We get the implication that he died, along with a sorta graphic depiction of the Headless Horseman killing Ichabod by tossing the titular pumpkin at him. They say he was never heard from again, but we all know the dirty implications. I'll give that a pass.
We have a full telling of the climax of the Headless Horseman, summarized within the beginning within two minutes. If they had just given a beat-for-beat retelling of the original story while abiding to what they consider to be good enough for children, this would've been a hell of a lot more forgettable, but this isn't are prime focus.
Like many of animated films from the time, our focus goes to the present day, centered on two average kids. For better or worse, it keeps with the connection to the original story by having one of the kids, Nick, be a descendant of Ichabod Crane (not entirely confirmed, but strongly suggested due to both being cowards.) Points for using a common trait and one that's more or less easy to connect to. But that isn't all there is to him, Nick also has a fascination with technology, though this isn't explored beyond designing a Halloween prop and a scene where he's more fascinated with a prop case that holds the manuscript (aka the igniting aspect of the plot device)
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| Our heroes ladies and gentlemen, two of three anyways. |
Nick's friend is Kate, and obviously she'd not only be the beaver of the two, but kind enough to put up with a boy who'd be destined to be ostracized for such a domineering character flaw. Also she helps to put aside any adaptational inconstancies by bringing up crucial aspects, including the fact that the story is based on mostly true happenings.
He's not integral to the plot, but this character is interesting enough for me to bring up. Like many real life settings, you gotta have a bully, and this film delivers. Tucker, the bully, is not like any stereotypical bully, he's actually pretty entertaining. He mainly picks on Nick to exploit his cowardly nature, but obviously the bully is also somewhat easy to spook come the right circumstances. Basically, it's a character stereotype done proper.
Onto the remainder of the film, the plot gets going when two thieves (and like many films that involve thieves, it's a bumbling idiot paired with a short-tempered intelligent one) steal the manuscript. They decide to hide the manuscript in a pumpkin patch, to return to it once they evaded the authorities. That makes sense, but the following doesn't, just the fact that the manuscript is magical. But, unless they intend to bring satanic rituals into a kids film, I guess this made the most sense.
Nick and Kate discover the pumpkin containing the manuscript while searching for the right kind of pumpkin for a pumpkin carving contest. Little happened between this that was worth mentioning for the record. It's there that things begin to get weird. The pumpkin they retrieve appears to be already carved, and out of it comes a bumbling non-human sidekick that compliments any cheesy kids movie. Their stand in for this is a ghost named Nathaniel. When I first saw this, I thought Nathaniel was a cowardly ghost, but it turns out he's just a typical right place wrong time kind of character. Harmless, but at the same time nothing special. He also relays more info on the original story, right down to the fact that the Headless Horseman was a Hessian soldier (they would've called it a regular soldier, but the fact that they mention the specific type used really gives me the idea they actually looked over the original story to score some additional brownie points.)
The Headless Horseman is summoned and it pursues the pumpkin to complete its visage and to become fully formed, but, hitting more trope notes, it has to be done by midnight. But again, it still makes sense because it would be at the end of Halloween, and since when do monsters belong in a Thanksgiving-centric holiday? Nick, Kate and Nathaniel take place in Castle Von Tassel, a notorious ancient castle which is haunted by ghosts. They don't play that much of a role beyond headlining a song (which we'll get to later) and briefly serving as obstacles for our heroes. The Headless Horseman gains the pumpkin, seemingly at the stroke of midnight, but the big bad winds up failing thanks to convenience (or if you want to be more specific, the clock on the castle was apparently off by a minute.)
It's neither a silly ending, nor is it that creative, though I will say that it felt like Nick garnered the courage to test what turned out to be an effective way of defeating the Headless Horseman.
The film has a basic premise with otherwise silly moments in between, but that isn't always a bad thing. It's harmless and by family friendly tellings of grim stories standards, it didn't feel too botched.
Animation
Porchlight's animation could be summed up like this. Near average character designs, slightly better backgrounds and an ultra-smooth frame rate. When watching this, I could tell they really wanted to try their best, and here it wasn't in vain. The characters here look fine, they're easily
identifiable from a visual standpoint and the action looks decent. By direct-to-video/TV movie standards it's pretty good. I also saw some more ambitious animation techniques, and they pulled it off fine.
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| Such as one of those artsy perspective shots. |
It looks cartoony, but that's what they were going for, either that or they knew they had to cut corners and sought a shortcut that wouldn't undermine their work.
Acting
The film doesn't contain familiar voice actors, at least not highly recognized ones. Nick is voiced by Joanna Ruiz, who's only other recognized role was in the Horrid Henry cartoon series. Eric Meyers and Tom Clarke Hill who voiced Nathaniel and Tucker and the two thieves respectively both appeared in an English dub for a Spanish CGI movie called Spirit of the Forrest. Meyers did have some additional roles, such as being the first voice Daisuke Jigen in Lupin the 3rd. The rest have appeared in Thomas and Friends of all things. I half expected Porchlight to outsource acting duties to Vancouver, but it turns out that most of the actors are based in the United Kingdom (Nick's and Kate's anyways.)
But I'm just droning on at this point. The actors did a good job here, even the actors voicing two characters at once. Some of them even sound like more familiar actors. If you could pull off a convincing Dee Bradley Baker (Ichabod Crane in the start) and a convincing Ash Ketchum (Nick), you're destined to go beyond work for hire.
Music
To round off the common aspects of family films, this movie has songs in it. Two anyways. The first can be heard while Nick and Kate are preparing a halloween prop. It's a pop rock tune. It's sorta catchy, not grating on the ears and it sorta reminds me of a lighter version of Terror Time Again from Scooby Doo on Zombie Island. The other song is a generic haunted house affair. It fits and, like the previous one, it's also pretty harmless, but the previous song is better.
Overall
I'd normally be against watered down adaptations of otherwise dark material, but honestly, they handled it pretty well. Nothing worth stressing over, the characters are likable, the animation is decent and it gives decent Halloween vibe. It's kinda like a less cheesy Scary Godmother, but it still stands on its own. I think you'll like it.
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