Burton's valentine to Hammer Horror + Depp's unorthodox work = inspired revisionist take on classic ghost story

Rating: 10/10 (12 September 2006)

SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999) **** Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Casper Van Dien, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Michael Gough, Jeffrey Jones, Richard Griffiths, Ian McDiarmid, Christopher Walken, Lisa Marie, Marc Pickering, Christopher Lee (cameo). Filmmaker Tim Burton successfully brings to full fruition the giddy nightmare of Washington Irving's classic "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" to the screen in his atmospherically rich adaptation blending horror and humor with a deft , dank elan. Depp (in a wonderfully comic affectation inflected performance) is Ichabod Crane, in this version a New York City constable instead of a school master circa 1799, who is banished to the fog enshrouded farming hamlet of Sleepy Hollow Upstate New York to investigate the ghoulish murders involving decapitation and the dark ghost story of a slain Hussein horseman out for bloodthirsty revenge beyond the grave! Think a prehistorical "X-File" if you will as produced by Hammer Films. Exhilaratingly paced action sequences involving some fancy fencing, spine chilling incarnation of the spawn from hell and nasty, graphic beheadings all combine in this spookily superb revival with its truly pitch perfect production design by Rick Heinrichs, Emmanuel Lubezki's black and blue-green desaturated inky eerily beautiful photography and as always Danny Elfman's pulse quickening score. Depp's chicken hearted interpretation of Crane, Ricci's ethereal beauty as his love interest and Walken's frightening presence are evident to the bewitching, hypnotic feverdream of the genius that is Burton. Trivia note: Ray Park, who was Darth Maul in "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace", is the Headless Horseman.