Curse of the Headless Horseman
Curse of the Headless Horseman
PG | 01 January 1972 (USA)
Curse of the Headless Horseman Trailers

A hippie medical student named Mark inherits his uncle's Wild West theme park. Mark and his stoner pals move in, only to find out that a violent ghost already lives there.

Reviews
Michael J Salmestrelli (vonnoosh)

For my money, this is the worst movie ever made. I've seen Creeping Terror, Manos, Monster A GoGo, the Coleman Francis Trilogy and most of Ray Dennis Steckler's films (including some of his soft core flicks). I STILL think the Curse of the Headless Horseman is the worst movie ever made.For one thing, the dialogue is hard to hear. I do hear the narration which would be moderately evocative in a different setting (also if the voice didn't sound like it was on the Monster Mash song), but the dialogue is what's supposed to be advancing any kind of plot and from what I do hear, it does not. The picture quality is bad and while I admit to have seen a poor cheap transfer of the movie, there is no way this film would benefit from having a clean print. If anything, lousy picture quality almost helps give this movie a creepy horror feel which it fails to deliver on its own.What makes this movie on par with your average Coleman Francis movie is the script. The narration opens with an explanation of the ranch and hints at the fact that something horrible happened to the owner (only clothes identified him, closed casket). The movie leaves it at that and it ties the potential murder to no one.Another problem with the script is that there are no likable characters. NONE. I found myself rooting for the creepy old caretaker, Solomon. As the story develops...I mean as the movie continues, only three characters develop any kind of personality so it isn't hard to guess who is going to prove to be the villain. That ruins the suspense when it comes time for the big reveal in the end. Everyone else in the movie (I guess you can call it an ensemble cast) is just there on the screen. No time is spent to develop their characters and not hearing the dialog well ruins the feeble attempts to develop who they are and why they are on screen. In the end, these characters are faceless. The first death in the story happens to a woman getting hit by a truck. You don't know who she is. You don't know her significance. You don't even know if she is a part of this little hippie commune group. We are stuck assuming this is true and I guess the audience is supposed to find her death significant because the characters act like it for one scene right after it happens (they don't later).One of the characters that does develop a personality on screen is a guy named John who is introduced to the audience as a hothead at a party and later in what looks to be a brutal rape scene that happens with some of the I guess good characters are sitting back and enjoying to watch it. The relationship between John and this woman isn't established by that time in the movie and you're left thinking that apparently she wanted to be ravaged by this creep because she ends up walking around with him later. None of their back stories are explained. These are scenes of unintentional horror because the ugly rape scene wasn't meant to come across that way. The other characters that develop a personality are Mark and Solomon. Three characters have a face surrounded by faceless hippies. This is fine and dandy except when characters are being killed off, you don't care because they're nondescript. You know absolutely nothing about them. Two of the victims have no lines in the movie, NONE.There's some irrelevant scenes of people walking around on film. A chubby man is hanging around with an older woman. The 'star' is someone who isn't an actress named Ultra Violet. She has a lousy scene where she shows interest in buying the property but is scared off when she sees the caretaker. There's a bad hippy comedy scene and one song performed by a country singer I never heard of. These scenes tell nothing in terms of story and they say nothing about the character's themselves. Is that possible? Normally, no but it does happen here.People toward the end are killed while ARMED men out to stop the violence sit back and let it happen. This happens twice. After the murder, death and mayhem, the other characters engage in leisurely conversation, joking with each other as though they didn't care. They also seem to enjoy hanging around the ranch after all this happens.The only time the nameless ensemble cast of characters care about what happens is at the end for the big reveal. With only one developed character left, you can guess how big the reveal is. Also the menace of this ultimate villain is undercut by his excellent Don Knotts impersonation (see The Shakiest Gun in the West for reference) during his kill crazy rampage (he steals the gun off another guy but just happens to have a pocket full of bullets that fit so that he can reload) I'm willing to excuse poor fight choreography and bad special effects because this is about as low budget as it gets. I am even willing to ignore the fact that this is clearly not set on a ranch; it clearly was never a town which became a 'ghost town', but is what it looks like, an amusement park.What I can't excuse is the script and this cast which is filled with loathsomeness. The movie is a collection of stupid plot twists, clunkers for actors and pointless attempts at character devlopment. I enjoyed the song in the closing credits, the way the over the top caretaker character named Solomon (not sure if he dies or not; you get a feeling that what happened to him isn't taken very seriously by anyone; not sure if Solomon tries to save the second victim or not because the narration says "He tried to save her" without identifying who "He" is. The camera is on Solomon during this so I assume it's him? Is Solomon the nearest thing this dog of a film comes to a hero?) and the repeated line "IT WILL BEGIN AGAIN." I imagine if the Manson family made a movie, it would be exactly like this.

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Joseph Brando

As a film, this is truly an awful awful attempt. It's one of those "do it yourself" horror flicks that were so plentiful in the days of the drive-in and then repeated ad nauseum in the 70's on TV as "Creature Features". However this is quite a curio for those who find any of it's themes particularly interesting. The whole movie takes place at a closed-down "wild west" tourist attraction which once speckled our American highways in great numbers, but now only a few remain. For that reason alone, this film provides a rare time capsule into the great lost Roadside America! The cast of characters are hippies - tie-dye wearing, acid- dropping hippies. There's some yodeling. And of course the titular Headless Horseman who carries around a pretty realistic looking dead head for a bottom-of- the-barrel production such as this. Bad movie lovers will certainly find much to amuse in this. However, if you are a traditional movie-goer, this inept insanity will certainly try your patience or put you to sleep.

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davidlb07

It's bad alright, but not >that< bad. The editing is really bad, the acting really bad, the sound "effects" and visual "effects" are really bad, but, personally, this all adds up to a really move that ends up being >somewhat< watchable in its badness. Don't get me wrong, the movie sucks, big time. Do NOT pay even a dime to watch it! It came on late-nite TV locally, and I HAD to watch it after reading the reviews here. So, if it it comes on TV, give it a shot -you can always change the channel- but do NOT spend any money on renting/buying this movie!! BTW- does anyone know where this was filmed? I'm sure in S.Cal somewhere, but it looks like a few different spots where I've hung out before (in my mis-spent youth), plus it looks like it was filmed next to a somewhat major road or minor highway....

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rufasff

This film is somewhat intestering example of grade Z filmmaker, from a guy who was responsible for something called "Carnival of Blood" before moving on to hard core porno. Some footloose hippie types move out to a western ranch to help a friend, but the headless horsemen starts knocking them off, then there is a surprise ending. There seems to be no script, but the actors do a surprisingly good job just sort of cobbing the scenes together. It's kind of fun if you are in the right mood, the place kind of looks like the Spann ranch, and they sure don't make them like this anymore. The "Something Weird" video comes with trailers and other stuff

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