Unlike the MPAA we do not assign
one
inscrutable rating based on age, but 3 objective ratings for SEX/NUDITY, VIOLENCE/GORE
and PROFANITY on a scale of 0 to 10, from lowest to highest,
depending on quantity and context.
Johnny Depp plays constable Ichabod Crane, sent to investigate
a series of beheadings in the small village of Sleepy Hollow.
Based on Washington Irving's story and directed by Tim Burton.
Also with Christina Ricci, Casper Van Dien, Miranda Richardson,
Michael Gambon, Marc Pickering, Christopher Walken, Michael Gough,
Christopher Lee, Jeffrey Jones, Lisa Marie, Richard Griffiths, Ian
McDiarmid and Steven Waddington. [1:45]
SEX/NUDITY 3 - A few kisses on the cheek, a man pulls a
woman onto his lap and kisses her and we see the shadows of, and
hear the sounds of two people kissing. We see a man moving on top
of a woman (no nudity is visible); we see the scene again briefly
in a flashback. Lots of women wear cleavage-revealing dresses.
VIOLENCE/GORE 9 - More than ten people are beheaded; we
always hear a slicing noise, often see blood spray from the bloody
neck stump and sometimes see the head roll on the ground (in one
scene a head rolls between a man's legs, and another man stabs the
top of the head with a sword and takes it away). A man's arm is
sliced off, a man's body is cut in half, a man's leg is stabbed
with a knife (we see the handle sticking out of his thigh), a man
is stabbed in the shoulder and flipped backwards onto the ground,
a man is shot in the chest, a man is hit in the head with a wooden
cross and killed, and two men are impaled (one has a very bloody
fence post sticking out of his chest and is then pulled out of a
window and dragged between two fence posts); in all of these
scenes, we see lots of dripping, pooling or spraying blood. A boy
in a torture chamber sees a woman's corpse and lots of blood gush
out from an Iron Maiden; he puts his hands on a board of spikes
and gets many bloody cuts on his palms. A woman purposely cuts her
palm and rubs the blood on a man's back (he also licks the blood
from the cut). A man with sharpened teeth cuts a woman's mouth
when he kisses her (we see blood running down her chin). A horse
is shot (we see blood on its leg). A man with an axe grabs the
hair of a young boy (it's implied that the boy is beheaded). A man
is shot several times in different scenes but is not injured;
also, a carriage crashes on top of a man without injuring him.
While standing on top of a carriage, a man is hit in the head with
a branch and knocked off. Two men fight on top of a moving
carriage; also, a man is dragged by two horses. A man is hit in
the head with a burning pumpkin and knocked off his horse. A man
shakes and shoves a woman, a person is tackled and hit in the back
with a large stick and a man is thrown into a cellar jail pit. A
woman cuts off a bat's head and squeezes it into a pot. A woman's
face turns into a gray, skeleton-like mask and snakes shoot out
from her mouth and eye sockets. Blood spurts and oozes from a tree
when a man chops one of its branches and removes a piece of bark
(we also hear lots of squishy noises as he does this). We see
veins and flesh grow back on a skeleton's skull. We see many
headless corpses (blood and veins are visible inside the neck
stumps and sometimes the corpses have bloody clothing; in one
scene, a large bug crawls out of one's neck stump); we also see
several heads (in one scene, we see several bloody heads in a tree
stump). Snakes crawl on a skeleton in a grave. Blood sprays on a
man's glasses as he's performing an autopsy; afterwards, we see
him with blood all over his apron and face. We see several people
with blood sprayed on their faces and clothing. We see a large cut
on a corpse's palm and a cut on a corpse's stomach. Red wax
dripping on paper looks like blood. A large fire is started inside
a building that later explodes.
A CAVEAT: We've gone through several editorial changes since we
started covering films in 1992 and some of our early standards were
not as stringent as they are now. We therefore need to revisit many
older reviews, especially those written prior to 1998 or so; please
keep this in mind if you're consulting a review from that period.
While we plan to revisit and correct older reviews our resources are
limited and it is a slow, time-consuming process.
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