Don't lose your head

Rating: 6/10 (14 November 2013)

The 1999 film "Sleepy Hollow" is another collaboration between Johnny Depp (in his mid-30s at that point), already a huge star back then, and Tim Burton almost 10 years after the great "Edward Scissorhands". This story has been done many many times back until the early silent days of cinema, but Burton's take probably took over from the animated short film version from 1949 as the most common adaptation of this horror tale. If you didn't know it was by Tim Burton or about his affection with the supernatural, you could still think early on, this was not a mystery tale, but a crime story. The protagonist hears about a couple of beheadings in another town and travels there believing some mass murderer was on the run. When he is played a prank on by some of the locals who dress up as the headless horseman, this tendency stays alive. However, when Ichabod Crane runs for the first time into the real monster, it becomes clear that something supernatural is taking its course.
While I was admittedly never too interested in the story, it still made for a good watch. Especially Christopher Walken is a perfect casting choice for his part and Christina Ricci looks like a gloomy version of a mysterious modern Disney princess here. Michael Gambon I occasionally mistook for Geoffrey Rush and that's of course really a compliment. I'm more of a fan of invisible danger and horror à la "Blair Witch Project" than of Burton's mostly very graphic style, so I wasn't really scared, but I was entertained for the most part. The finale got a bit messy admittedly, but that shouldn't take the focus from how solid everything before that is, especially the visual side, but that's almost a given with Burton. The effects, the bleak landscapes and the whole setting are certainly the highlight of the film. Lovers of mystery films will probably have a much better time watching this one than I did, but even if I'm not too eager on watching it in the near future again, I'd also recommend it to everybody else who's not completely opposed to the genre and even then you could still enjoy it from the period piece angle.