A well-made, entertaining horror film

Rating: 7/10 (27 November 1999)

Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow is a wonderfully enjoyable film, complete with top-notch acting and first-rate direction. Burton solidifies his position as one of the premiere visual filmmakers in Hollywood. Johnny Depp stars as Ichabod Crane, a constable (in this version, anyway) who is sent up from New York by his frustrated superiors to solve a series of spooky murders.
Depp is superb as Crane. He plays the constable not as the generic fast-thinking gun-slinging detective; instead, he paints Crane as an intelligent romantic with a slight touch of cowardice. It's fun to see such a smart, believable performance. Christina Ricci has a nice supporting turn as Katrina Van Tassel, Crane's young love interest. And then there's the always watchable Jeffrey Jones, who, in my mind, will always be known as the principal in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Burton's use of the camera is masterful. He creates a haunting, eerie mood not seen in a horror movie since Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula in 1992. The dark tone of the cinematography combines well with Danny Elfman's score, producing a remarkably engrossing effect.
Sleepy Hollow loses steam late, and its ending, although satisfactory, is not incredible. The screenplay jumps around a little too much, and one character is sort of tossed in at the end and is in need of more development. Unlike the far superior Dracula, which had several excellent supporting roles to beef up the film, Sleepy Hollow is pretty much one-dimensional. But this movie isn't supposed to be a cerebral masterpiece but a visual one, and it certainly is that.