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SLEEPY HOLLOW Send This Review to a Friend
Director Tim Burton has taken Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and made it his own, which tells us where the tale of the headless horseman is headed. A ghost story is now a full-fledged horror film chock full of the special effects and visual impact for which Burton has achieved renown. Heads are lopped off, gruesomely depicted individually and together, and the headless rider and his horse spring from the inside of a tree. Victims and survivors alike cringe in terror.
Burton serves up comic relief on occasion, mainly with Johnny Depp's Ichabod Crane, a novice hooked on the science of crime sleuthing and behaving like a determined young Sherlock Holmes. He is annoying officials in New York near the end of the 18th century, so he is sent to Sleepy Hollow to get him out of the way with the assignment of finding who is responsible for the head-chopping. Depp is funny as he presses forward in the face of events that sometimes make him shake with fright.
The question boils down to whether this sort of film is your cup of brew. Headless is also mindless. The film is relentless in piling on the atrocities as the horseman, a warrior who was slain and beheaded and cannot rest in his grave until he finds and reattaches his head, heaps terror upon the village of Sleepy Hollow. Crane, played with open-faced self-assurance by Depp, is positive that local schemers have something to do with the murderous rides.
Cristopher Walken is a vision of horror as the horseman when his noggin is in place, and others in the competent cast include Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, and Christopher Lee. You may find you've had enough after the first few severs, but if you are a firm Tim Burton fan, you may have a slashing good time. A Paramount Pictures and Mandalay Pictures release.
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