Parents Guide for
Sleepy Hollow (1999) More at IMDbPro »

A man and woman are briefly shown having sex in some woods. Both are clothed, so no nudity is visible. Thrusting and moaning are present, though.

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.

Two mild obscenities

Drink and smoke, but it is the time period

The appearance of the horseman with and without his head (the "with" part includes views of him and his animal-like sharpened teeth) may be scary or unsettling to some viewers.

Very atmospheric & intense throughout which some viewers may find frightening. Many discussions about death, headless bodies and graphic decapitation.

The scenes of decapitation are intense for some...especially the decapitation of the young child Thomas Killian . The actual death is not seen, but it is built up with intense music. It will be very disturbing to some viewers, especially children.