”The heads will roll.”
Sleepy Hollow
- Director: Tim Burton
- Based on a short story: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (written by Washington Irving)
- Starring: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Christopher Walken
- Milieu: 1799-Century America
- Genre: Horror
- Music: Danny Elfman
- Release: 1999
The Plot
SPOILER WARNING
Ichabod Crane, an eccentric investigator leaves to Sleepy Hollow to investigate few brutal murders, the victims were decapitated and no one found their heads . The Dutch village community’s elders inform that the murder isn’t flesh and blood, rather a supernatural Headless Horseman who came back from Hell, Ichabod remains skeptical and claims that there must be a natural cause and the murderer can’t be a dead person . As soon Ichabod has arrived to Sleepy Hollow, the Horseman has claimed a new victim, Jonathan Masbath. After Masbath’s funeral the judge of Sleepy Hollow wants to talk to Ichabod about the victims, but the judge is stopped by the Horseman who cuts his head off, directly in front of Ichabod.
After the happenings Ichabod leaves to the woods to hunt the Horseman down to end these homicides. In the woods Ichabod meets a witch who tells to find the Tree of the Dead, because the Horseman’s tomb lies there.
Soon Ichabod finds out why the Horseman comes back to live, the Horseman seeks for his missing head. Little by little Ichabod discovers that there’s is a huge conspiracy in the village of Sleepy Hollow. The Horseman attacks to the village and the men who Ichabod suspected being part of the conspiracy got killed during the attack.
In the end of the movie Ichabod stops the Horseman by giving his head back and the Horseman rides back to Hell.
My thoughts about the movie
I have always admired Tim Burton’s movies and Sleepy Hollow isn’t an exception. The atmosphere of the movie is dark and in my opinion Sleepy Hollow it’s one of the darkest movies Tim Burton has ever directed. There’s a lot of violence in the movie and I don’t recommend if you can’t stand violence, but otherwise I recommend it. The cast work is really good and they take their roles seriously. And the role of Ichabod Crane is in my opinion one of the best roles of Johnny Depp.
I wouldn’t call Sleepy Hollow a horror movie, it isn’t scary or frightening at all, but it’s macabre. The Horseman isn’t fully made of special effects, I was surprised by the fact that they only used computer to remove his head from the film, the rest body is all flesh and blood.
Sleepy Hollow is absolutely one of my favorite movies. Like you said in the review, it wasn’t scary at all. You just made me want to watch this movie again.