You won’t find much of Washington Irving’s 1820 tale “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” in this 1999 film, but you will find plenty of Tim Burton and his influences, which include FRANKENSTEIN (1931), BLACK SUNDAY (1960) and virtually the entire Hammer House of Horror 1960s catalogue. Executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola, SLEEPY HOLLOW was touted, after the box office disappointments of ED WOOD (1994) and MARS ATTACKS! (1996), as Burton’s “comeback.” It wasn’t an overwhelming success by any means (with a worldwide gross of $206,071,502 against a $100,000,000 budget), but was popular enough to at least partially mend Burton’s reputation.
Featured is Burton’s then-favorite actor Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, a wimpy NYC constable haunted by horrific childhood memories involving the death his mother (Burton’s then-girlfriend Lisa Marie), who was killed in a manner that lays bare the film’s debt to BLACK SUNDAY. Ichabod is summoned to the Dutch settlement of Sleepy Hollow to investigate the deaths of three powerful people whose heads are nowhere to be found. The town council believes the culprit is the Headless Horseman, a Revolutionary War hero (Christopher Walken) decapitated in battle whose spirit periodically rises to chop off peoples’ heads in an attempt at replacing its own.
Ichabod’s investigation begins in the home of the wealthy Baltus (Michael Gambon) and Lady Van Tassel (Miranda Richardson), who immediately jump to the top of Ichabod’s suspect list (due in no small part to the fact that Gambon and Richardson both specialized in villain roles). Ichabod is immediately besotted with their fetching goddaughter Katrina (Christina Ricci), which leads to the infamous line “I think you have a bit of a witch in you, for you’ve bewitched me.”
The Legend of Sleepy Hallow short story by Washington Irving
A fourth decapitation lands the victim’s son Masbath (Marc Pickering) in Ichabod’s care. They enter the realm of a cave-dwelling crone (Cassandra Farndale), who after replicating the “Large Marge” eyeball popping gag from PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE (1985) reveals the location of the headless horseman’s realm—which turns out to be a tree stump from which the horseman periodically emerges, and which contains the severed heads of his victims. After a few more killings Ichabod deduces that the victims are carefully selected, and that the true culprit is a townsperson controlling the horseman.
SLEEPY HOLLOW Trailer
SLEEPY HOLLOW, as with most Burton films, fumbles essentials like story and character. That’s actually a surprise, since the credited screenwriter was the talented Andrew Kevin Walker (SEVEN). He’s responsible (I assume) for silly lines like the abovementioned “you’ve bewitched me” utterance, and a hoary conspiracy plot that all-but derails the final third of the film, which climaxes with a carriage chase that proves breakneck action is not Burton’s forte. The tone is also a bit uncertain, being quite dour, albeit with a hint of the kind-hearted comedy that’s Burton’s forte, rendering what could have been a troublingly gory film (with more onscreen decapitations than any other American movie I know of) palatable, if not entirely satisfying.
This is all stacked against Burton’s astounding visual flair. The setting is a deliberately artificial, dark-hued universe where shrouds of fog descend from the skies to snuff out candles and a headless horseman looks right at home. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (GRAVITY) deserves at least as much credit for the film’s impact as Burton, although the visuals don’t always match, with the daylight scenes filmed on location in England and the nighttime ones lensed on Shepperton soundstages.
Johnny Depp is solid, if annoying, as Ichabod Crane, whose constant fainting and gulping quickly grows grating. Christina Ricci gives her all as Katrina, which doesn’t alleviate the fact that Burton was clearly more interested in her chest than her acting. The supporting cast includes skilled British thespians like Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Richard Griffiths, Ian McDiarmid, Michael Gough and Burton icon Christopher Lee, as well as the very American Christopher Walken, who probably isn’t anyone’s idea of an Eighteenth Century horseman but makes the best of a miscast role.
That leaves us with one of the most important components of any Tim Burton film: the music of Danny Elfman, which isn’t up to the high standards set by most every other Burton score by Elfman, and is in large part responsible (I’d opine) for the tonal uncertainty. Cacophonous and distracting, the music of SLEEPY HOLLOW, unlike that of BEETLEJUICE, BATMAN or EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, does nothing to elevate or even compliment the imagery–quite the opposite, in fact, and if there exists an overriding theme amid all the noise I was unable to find it.
Vital Statistics
SLEEPY HOLLOW
Paramount Pictures/Mandalay Pictures
Director: Tim Burton
Producers: Scott Rudin, Adam Schroeder
Screenplay: Kevin Andrew Walker
(Based on a story by Washington Irving)
Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki
Editing: Chris Lebenzon
Cast: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, Jeffrey Jones, Richard Griffiths, Ian McDiarmid, Michael Gough, Christopher Walken, Marc Pickering, Lisa Marie, Steven Waddington, Claire Skinner, Christopher Lee, Alun Armstrong, Mark Spalding, Jessica Oyelowo