More Of A Murder Mystery Than A Horror Movie - And A Pretty Good One

Rating: 7/10 (14 March 2009)

Being totally unfamiliar with the original story by Washington Irving (all that I knew about it was the obvious fact that it featured a headless horseman) I waded into this movie with no preconceived notions and no expectations of what was going to happen. The end result was a pretty enjoyable ghost story. Johnny Depp seemed perfectly cast here as Ichabod Crane - the New York City policeman (sort of a Sherlock Holmes-type) who gets sent to the sleepy village of Sleepy Hollow in 1799 to help investigate a series of murders in which the victims' heads have been cut off and never found. It was a typical quirky sort of role for Depp, who's teamed again with director Tim Burton. Crane wades straight into the legend of a Hessian soldier beheaded during the Revolution who now haunts Sleepy Hollow until his head is returned to him. The mystery is around who he chooses to kill and why he chooses them.
That mystery is pretty well put together, although a bit confusing at times, and while it does all make perfect sense in the end, I had absolutely no idea who the person responsible for the horseman's killings was going to be. I did make a guess and it turned out to be wrong. As always, Tim Burton puts together a perfect blend of story and atmosphere that makes the movie very realistic to watch, and the special effects are very well done. Although the murders are graphically depicted, they're not especially bloody considering that they feature beheadings (especially compared to, say, the bloody gore of Burton's "Sweeney Todd," which also featured Depp) and I would tend to call this a murder mystery rather than a horror movie as it's suspenseful rather than frightening. Enjoyable though it was, I found there was a period in the middle when the story seemed to lose its hold on me and I had to force myself to concentrate on it, and I'm not really sure why. I also thought Crane's arrival in Sleepy Hollow - an isolated 18th century town in which most everyone is related to everyone (a point made later in the movie) was accepted a bit too nonchalantly, given that he was a complete stranger, and small towns - even today - tend to view strangers (especially city folk) with some sense of suspicion. That may be considered by some to be an unimportant detail, but I did notice it, and it caused me to question the story's credibility from the start. Still, it's a pretty good piece of work by all involved.