Sleepy Hollow

Ready to really be scared on today’s review? Well, let’s take a look at another Tim Burton movie. How about Burton’s 1999 movie, “Sleepy Hollow,” based off of a short story by Washington Irving? That seems like it is appropriate for today, especially since I recently saw that movie.

The year is 1799 and “the millennium is almost upon us” says Ichabod Crane, played by Johnny Depp, in Tim Burton’s enthusiastically depressing 1999 movie. When Ichabod takes his horse north from New York City, he rides up the west bank of the Hudson River even though the village of Sleepy Hollow is on the east. Janet Maslin of the New York Times said in her review, “His idea of a beautiful day may be somebody else's nuclear winter, but Mr. Burton eagerly brings his visions of sugarplums to the screen.”

When it comes to appearances, this dark, shivery movie manages to be as specifically Burtonesque as “Edward Scissorhands” or “Batman.” Giving a peacefully unrecognizable look on Irving’s story and its famously unlucky schoolteacher, the film brings its huge fallbacks of creativity to tolerate on matters like head decapitations. Maslin explained in her review, “Quaint Dutch burghers of the Hudson Valley could have bowled ninepins throughout Rip Van Winkle's sleep-in with the supply of decapitated heads sent flying here, even if Mr. Burton handles such sequences with his own brand of wit. Shot 1: Sword approaches victim. Shot 2: Blood splashes Ichabod's glasses. Shot 3: Head rolls away. Shot 4: Body pitches forward. Pause for laugh”

History will be able to point out the rich imagination and secret tenderness of Burton’s best films. Even Maslin admitted, “From a purely technical standpoint, as in the award-ready cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki, this grimly voluptuous ''Sleepy Hollow'' must be one of them.” However, people will question what the theaters or houses were covered with during this period of obsession with horror on screen. There is no reason why people should like Burton greatly without wanting to look at the exposed brain stems of his characters, but “Sleepy Hollow” leaves no choice. Written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who took off Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in “Seven” and apparently thought that was very minor, “Sleepy Hollow” makes the story of the Headless Horseman a pre-tabloid story of a rampaging serial killer.

There are reasons to feel scared by this, and they aren’t about sickness. Walker’s work also includes “Fight Club,” which I haven’t seen so I’ll let Maslin describe the movie: “a genuinely daring effort to make sense of the violent impulses of buttoned-down young men, and to plumb those dangers found at the nexus of popular culture and political fanaticism. That, at least, had the hallmarks of something different, and it involved a much lower body count than the one racked up by the Headless Horseman.” “Sleepy Hollow,” which in a façade of an exotic story and horror-film respect, offers little such weight. For all its visual intelligence, it’s much more predictably considered than Burton’s fans would expect.

Even birds nesting in one of the film’s huge, wintry indoor sets find themselves trying to escape, moving into the only blossom-filled backdrop that “Sleepy Hollow” uses, for minor fantasy scenes. However, the majority of the movie takes place in a forbidding, fairy-tale village and forest that are as determined as the Gotham City of “Batman.” Here Ichabod, whose English accent is now weak and Depp’s playful charm, is sent to find out the mystery of a series of murders and to find everybody in Sleepy Hollow looks slightly guilty. Here, he also learns of the vengeful headless Horseman, played by the man who can only have cowbell cure his fever, Christopher Walken in unneeded scary makeup, is now the person everyone in town is scared of.

Maslin says in her review, “Using a color palette more often associated with stories of the gulag, ''Sleepy Hollow'' creates a landscape so daunting that even a large tree bleeds.” There are moments like the tree revealing blood, and in a couple of situations where witchcraft was used, this movie does give a few scares, but most of it has a lot of tongue and cheek for that. As this film’s Ichabod uncovers the beheading murder investigation and even uncovers a village plot, he has much better luck with Katrina Van Tassel than any of the other looks on Ichabod ever did. Katrina is played attractively by the very beautiful Christina Ricci, who makes it through the film bravely while remaining very much a sarcastic person her own time.

An amazing cast shows off Colleen Atwood’s splendid costumes and delivers dialogue, some apparently written by Tom Stoppard, sometimes enhanced with a clever edge. Miranda Richardson whistles dangerously through the events as Katrina’s evil stepmother (aren’t they all in movies?), while the town elders are played by Michael Gough, Michael Gambon, Ian McDiarmid, Richard Griffiths and Jeffrey Jones. The horror king himself Christopher Lee is also in this movie, as he should be. Marc Pickering plays the teenage helper who Ichabod cautions, as he should to the audience, “I hope you have a strong stomach.”

With the many scenes of mischievous chaos, one finds a little boy (Sean Stephens) trembling under floorboards while the Horseman cuts the heads of his parents (Steven Waddington and Claire Skinner). Just in case of you think this movie is suitable of your children to watch. Why should it, don’t you know this is rated R?

Anyways, enough of that, go see the movie if you haven’t. Just to let you know, this is not the type of movie that you should be eating or drinking in because there are so many head decapitations, it’s not funny. Remember, this is a Tim Burton movie, his trademark style, and when he does movies like this, you know it should be good.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.