With dark visuals, impressive acting, and loads of tension, this Tim Burton movie is a stunner for the most part!

Rating: 9/10 (11 December 2009)

I was first introduced to "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving at a very early age, when I started hearing an audio book version of it. Not long after that, I saw the short animated Disney adaptation of the story. I remember both hearing the audio book and watching the Disney cartoon several times as a kid, it must have been in the early 90's, so I had been familiar with the story for years by the time this adaptation from Tim Burton was released in 1999. However, for some reason, it took me ten years to get around to watching the whole film (I saw just a bit of it years ago), even though I've seen every other Tim Burton film with Johnny Depp. I was expecting "Sleepy Hollow" to be a good movie, and my expectations may have been slightly surpassed!
In 1799, there has recently been more than one mysterious murder in the American town of Sleepy Hollow, and the bodies of the victims have all been found with their heads missing! A police constable named Ichabod Crane is sent from New York City to investigate, and soon after arriving in Sleepy Hollow, he is told of the Headless Horseman, the ghost of a Hessian mercenary sent during the American Revolutionary War who was caught and beheaded with his own sword! It is believed that he is the one responsible for these murders, but Ichabod doesn't believe this, and begins his investigation believing the murderer is a "man of flesh and blood." The constable is boarded in the home of the wealthy Van Tassels, and quickly falls in love with the family's daughter, Katrina. As he continues to investigate, he eventually sees the Headless Horseman himself, and learns that the story is true!
One of the things that make this film great is Burton's dark visual style, added to the scenery, full of leafless trees. These visuals are amazing and really fit the haunting atmosphere of this horror movie! The acting here also helps the quality of the film, as Depp puts on a noteworthy performance in the lead role of Ichabod Crane, and the performances from a number of supporting cast members stand out as well, including Christopher Lee as the Burgomaster, who sends Ichabod to Sleepy Hollow, and Christopher Walken as the Headless Horseman. For the vast majority of the film, there's a lot of tension, which makes most of it consistently entertaining and really keeps the adrenaline pumping! The haunting musical score adds to this. The first romance scene with Ichabod and Katrina is probably the weakest part, but after that, the scenes involving the relationship between those two characters aren't so bad, and don't hurt the film.
I know this has obviously been said many times in the past ten years, but Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" does take liberties with the story. Long before sitting down to watch the whole movie, I knew they changed Ichabod's profession from schoolmaster to police constable, and now that I've watched it, I realize there are more differences than that, from what I remember about the story (which certainly isn't everything). However, I'm not complaining. Since the movie is so entertaining, I really don't think it matters how much it follows the source material! Now, unlike some versions of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", this one is not for kids, which I'm sure one would assume with the R rating. But for adult viewers who like horror movies and admire creative filmmakers like Burton, watching this 1999 box office hit could easily be a hauntingly entertaining experience, and not likely a film one could easily forget!