Not Horror but a Gothic Fairy Tale

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2001)

Perhaps you have to be a Burton fan to like this stuff. The scenery, the characters, the humor; it is all Burton.
I loved this one. The atmosphere that it is breathing, the lack of color, the darkness and the surrounding. It all contributes to the big picture. A dark mysterious tale of an insecure policeman and the tale of a legendary ghost: The Headless Horseman.
Johnny Depp plays his part superbly. He is Ichabod Crane, the sometimes clumsy scientific N.Y. policeman. I even thought Ricci was terrific. By holding back her emotions and even act a little "cold" you could understand why Crane in the end has his doubts about her. But the greatest pleasure I took out of the part of the Horseman himself. Christopher Walken (the man who once said:'There is no such thing as a small role, only small actors') proofs that with just a few movie-minutes you can steel an entire picture. He is one scary horseman!
I read that some people didn't like the combination of humor, horror and what more. I think it makes it a better picture. Other people felt this wasn't a good horror movie. Well they are right because it is not. I like to think of it as a gothic fairy tale. If you want to compare it to horror, I think it will remind people to the seventies hammer horror. This, for example, also was a studio film.
Well I didn't read the story of the legend of Sleepy Hollow, but I can imagine that, for his own convenience, Burton did not stick to the original. And for this picture it may have been better so. I mean if Tim Burton has an idea about something you should let him go his own way and something beautiful will come out of it, just like this one.
The Art Direction on this picture was great and therefore deserved the Oscar (Although I still think that during the last couple of years the Academy Award is the less serious film-award of them all).
This was the third Burton/Depp movie, Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands were the other two, but I wouldn't mind if they made a fourth, fifth or even sixth movie together. If the outcome would be as great as this one (or the other two)it would certainly be a reason to visit the cinema again. Therefore this one got the highest score from me. A solid 10 out of 10