The title says it all

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 1999)

The screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, the dark star of 8MM and SEVEN, must have envisioned this adaptation of Washington Irving's Headless Horseman legend as another of his dour, black nights of the soul; he even manages to work in decapitation of a pregnant woman #2. Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) was clearly painted, in some early draft, as a variant of the Nice Guy Charlie cops played by Morgan Freeman and Nicolas Cage who discover the world is a dank and evil place.
But then Tim Burton set to work turning Walker's trendy angst-cloning into another of his campy pastiches of the horror culture of yore; and Johnny Depp tweaked the conceit further still. Depp added to Ichabod two elements clearly un-present in the script: the squeamish physicality of a snooty twelve-year-old girl (we like that) and a tendency to blanch, sissy-pants style, at the least sign of mayhem (we found that got old on the first try).

Christina Ricci, bless her heart, surely must join the ranks of other talented young actresses--Claire Danes is one--who must never, ever again be cast in a period movie. Limping back from the avant backlot of ED WOOD and MARS ATTACKS! to Main Stream, U.S.A., Tim Burton had a hit on his hands here that surprised me --its success must surely derive from the fact that today's teens on dates, pace BLAIR WITCH and SIXTH SENSE, like movies that seem to be "horror movies" without actually being remotely scary. Burton's model here seems to be Hammer horror, but even the tackiest, late-in-the-cycle Hammer is rich in characterization. SLEEPY HOLLOW, in comparison, is as human-being-free as a Jerry Bruckheimer speaker-blower.