Gothic fairytale

Rating: 8/10 (30 September 2006)

If someone would ask me a good movie to introduce himself on the works of Tim Burton I would suggest him either 'Edward Sciccorhands' or this, because they both have so similar atmosphere and they show Burton doing something he's good at: Gothic fairytale for adults.
'Sleepy Hollow' is stylish Gothic tale of a young inspector Ichiabod Crane (who else than Johnny Depp), who is sent to a remote village of Sleepy Hollow to find a culprit, who has decapitated 4 of the god fearing towns folk. When he arrives he learns, that the villagers believe the murderer to be no else than the Hessian Horsman (Chirstopher Walken), whose headless ghost has rose from the Hell to claim the heads of all who foolishly happen on his path. Crane's modern thinking is put to test after he learns that the case is in fact so and together with a son of one the victims Masbath (Marc Pickering) and lovely Katrina (Christina Ricci) he begins the search of the one, who has summoned the horrid hell spawn.
'Sleepy Hollow' is from the better side of Tim Burtons movies: it's visually stunning, the music by his court composer Danny Elfman fits in and brings out incredible atmosphere and the actors are doing their parts all around nicely. But if you want to pick something, then the take the script, as it does indeed leave some room for improvement and there are some minor plot holes, but then again this movie isn't meant to be looked so seriously from that direction, as the plot does work in the scale it is meant to work: a fantastic, grim fairytale.