Sleepy Hollow
Year of release : 1999
Run time : 1h45m
Genre : Gothic Horror / Fantasy
Cast : Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Christopher Walken
Director : Tim Burton
The movie is based on the 1820 short story “The legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving.
In 1799 constable Ichabod Crane is trying to do his work and change how things are done in New York, when it comes to how they treat dead bodies found in water and so on, as he says the cause of death might be something other than the obvious drowning.
Although he wants to analyze the dead bodies, he seems to have an aversion to wounds and dead bodies!
The burgomaster sends him to Sleepy Hollow, a town 2 days of travel from New York, to investigate the murders of 3 people, using his new way of investigating that his superiors call experiments.
Ichabod reaches the town in the evening, and first meets Katrina Van Tassel as he’s looking for her father. Her father offers Ichabod housing at the suggestion of his wife.
The doctor, magistrate, notary and reverend are present when he talks to Van Tassel, a “simple farmer” as he himself put it, but apparently he’s more than that, as he’s a landlord and banker.
They tell him they think the landowner Peter Van Garett and his son, who were found decapitated their heads taken, and the widow Winship, found decapitated a week later, were k1lled by the hessian mercenary who liked to decapitate people in battle, who he himself was decapitated as punishment, in the Western Woods.
Ichabod thinks that the assassin is a man of flesh and blood, and proceeds to find him.
The 4th victim is found, and Ichabod investigates the crime scene.He notices the wound was cauterized the very instant it was cut, as if the blade was hot.
At the funeral, the son of the man who was k1lled offers his services to Ichabod (because he’s an orphan now), and although at first he refuses, he takes him under his wing.
Living in the Van Tassel house, Ichabod spends time with Katrina, and she gives him a book for protection.
Seeing the magistrate fighting with the others, one day, and leaving, he follows him. While talking to him about the headless horseman, it appears and beheads the magistrate completely ignoring Ichabod.
Ichabod collapses, and after, is afraid to leave his room.
After a fever dream he wakes up thinking something must connect all these people, as the headless horseman doesn’t k1ll at random, and must be controlled by someone.
I personally enjoyed the movie.
I liked the world they created, the set design, the houses, the costumes..
The movie has a sort of grey filter over it, giving it a moody stormy skies or early evening-night vibe. The movie in certain scenes looks almost black and white, as the color palette is dark green, brown, grey, grey-blue, black.
Ichabod is a good investigator, and we see pieces of his childhood, to have an idea about who he is and why he chose this line of work. He seemed to have really loved his mother, who practiced white magic, his father being a menacing figure. Katrina might remind him of her.
One thing that bothered me was, why wasn’t the blood of the dead and buried coagulated?
The acting was good. Johnny Depp was the best, as his character has these quirks, and stands out.
Christopher Lee has a cameo.
The soundtrack was good.
The visual effects were great.
The movie holds a metascore of 65 against a user score of 7.5 on Metacritic, and a tomatometer of 71% against a popcornmeter of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a B-.
The movie grossed 207 million dollars against a budget of around a 100 million dollars.
The movie has been in the works since 1993.
The movie was nominated for many awards including for 3 Oscars winning the Oscar for Best Art Direction, 3 BAFTAs winning 2, and 8 Satellite Awards winning 5.
You can watch the full movie for free on the Ok.Ru platform, in English, with Romanian subtitles, and in other languages like Russian.
Rating : Worth a watch !