When you say Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, you already know what you’re gonna get. Dark aesthetic. Halloween-centric. Blacks, whites, oranges, and browns with horror written all over it. 1999’s Sleepy Hollow takes the famous Washington Irving short story and ramps it up tenfold, adding witches, a murder mystery, and one of the most iconic trees in cinema. Although Sleepy Hollow isn’t usually one of the movies that pops up first when I’m asked what my favorites are, once remembered, it immediately moves to the top of the list. Sleepy Hollow is a stunning vision of early American horror brought to life.
Directed by the fabulous tortured soul that is Tim Burton, Johnny Depp (as Ichabod Crane), Christina Ricci (as love interest, Katrina Van Tassel), and Christopher Walken and Ray Park (as the ill-fated Hessian who becomes the Headless Horseman, respectively), among a slew of others, solve the mystery of the Horseman collecting the heads of townsfolk and terrorizing the small village. As with other early New England settlements, Sleepy Hollow was rumored to be cursed, either by Natives or a witch living within or just outside of their community. Ichabod Crane is the squeamish but adept forensic scientist sent from the big city to solve the murders. While there, he falls in love with Katrina, which makes him a target for her suitors, corrupt town officials, and the villain behind the Headless Horseman’s rampage.
Certain filmmakers have a very specific aesthetic. Their work is recognizable on this look alone (other things, like dialog, story, etc. come second, but are often just as recognizable). Tim Burton put his whole god-damned foot into this movie. If you couldn’t tell by the visuals, everything is built from the ground up, a mix of actual period architecture and Burton’s grandiose yet slightly “weird” style. Same with the costuming — perfectly suited for each and every character. I could base the entire reasoning for this post on design alone. Hauntingly beautiful, Sleepy Hollow is every #aesthetic horror fan’s wet dream.
And a perfect setting couldn’t have anything less than a perfect story. The tale of the Headless Horseman terrorizing the small hamlet of Sleepy Hollow feels as old as America itself (because it pretty much is). A Halloween classic, Irving’s story has just enough lore, just enough horror and mystery, and just enough space to expand on it as these filmmakers have. Even though it takes place in the late 1700s/early 1800s, Sleepy Hollow adds some modernity in the use of forensics to a town stuck in the ideas of faith and witchcraft. I believe that this makes the movie scarier, especially compared to the Disney short that follows the original story more closely. With this, Sleepy Hollow gives us the gore and frights that could only stem from a hellbent Hessian come back from the great beyond. Could I do without the romance? Yes. But at least it didn’t get in the way of the horror of the story, it only supported it.
No matter how many times I see this, Sleepy Hollow catches my attention no matter the scene. Crane’s fascination yet disturbance by death lends itself to a few laughs. Van Tassel’s wide-eyed glances entwine you deeper into the film’s clutches. Walken’s performance as the Hessian is the only other role I can see him in besides “normal Walken.” And Park’s Horseman is an absolute dream — towering, malevolent, but also sympathetic.
We don’t lose the original story at all, it was just enhanced and pasted onto the background of the most bewitching set pieces in cinema (in my opinion). My one complaint is that it lasts only 106 minutes. Sleepy Hollow could do no wrong for me. In truth, Burton and Depp have been involved in entirely too many projects together; Sleepy Hollow negates all of those feelings and replaces them with childhood nostalgia and scares that both draw us in and repel us.
What do you think of Sleepy Hollow? Leave a comment and let us know!
