A Highly Recommended Horror Film

Rating: 9/10 (17 August 2000)

TITLE: Sleepy Hollow
RATING: ***1/2 (out of ****)
A Review by Bronco
We've probably all read the classic tale "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving. If you're expecting a movie out of that story, look elsewhere. The plot is completely different and the only thing similar are the character's names. But this is definitely not a bad thing because this is a very good movie.
Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) is an 18th century constable and uses forensic science. So a magistrate (Christopher Lee) sends him to Sleepy Hollow to solve murders where the victims were beheaded. So in Sleepy Hollow, he meets Baltus Van Tessel (Michael Gambon), his wife Lady Van Tassel (Miranda Richardson), the daughter Katrina (Christina Ricci) and a bunch of other people.
So they tell him about the headless horseman (Christopher Walken), a hessian who loved to slice people's heads off. At first, Ichabod doesn't believe it until he sees the horseman himself and Ichabod's investigations go a little furthur and he has the help of young Masbath (Marc Pickering) and Katrina. Ichabod also happens to be haunted by visions of his childhood when his mother was killed by his father.
This movie is very entertaining and will scare a lot of people. All the performances were done well but I thought Christina Ricci was a little miscast. Don't get me wrong, she did an excellent job but I just thought she was miscast but this is just a minor gripe. The beheadings all look very real and not phony. This is the first film that Tim Burton went full-blown horror and he did an excellent job.
This was probably definitely one of the most entertaining films of 1999 (it was definitely the best horror film of 1999). I really enjoyed it, almost everything was done above average. The only major gripe I had was the miscasting of Ricci but that's minor. A very good horror film that horror fans should definitely see if they haven't already.