Sleepy Hollow (1999)

105 Minutes, Color, USA, 1999

Written By: Andrew Kevin Walker (based on "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving)

Directed By: Tim Burton

Dramatis Personae:

Johnny Depp is Ichabod Crane, New York police inspector and slightly squeamish Stalwart Man of Science(tm).

Christina Ricci is Katrina Van Tassel, ethereal Sleepy Hollow heiress.

Marc Pickering is Young Masbeth, orphan and Watson to Ichabod's Holmes.

Miranda Richardson plays dual roles: she is Lady Van Tassel, Katrina's stepmother; and she is The Witch of the Western Woods, mysterious old crone who seems to know everything.

Michael Gambon is Baltus Van Tassel, Katrina's father and wealthy Sleepy Hollow squire.

Jeffrey Jones is Reverend Steenwyck, Sleepy Hollow's man of the cloth.

Ian MacDiarmid is Doctor Lancaster, town doctor.

Michael Gough is Hardenbrook, town notary.

Richard Griffiths is Philipse, Sleepy Hollow's magistrate and town drunk.

Casper Van Dien is Brom, Katrina's beau and town lunkhead.

Christopher Walken is The Hessian Horseman, Revolutionary War mercenary back from the grave to chop some heads.

Commentary:

I like Tim Burton. His films are visually unique experiences, like vivid fever dreams. Watching one of his movies, you really get the sense that you're watching the thought process of an extremely intelligent but slightly morbid child. Indeed, most of his films seem to have their roots in the daydreams of a creepy little kid who had no friends growing up (and I say this AS a former creepy little kid who had no friends growing up). When you watch a Burton film, you know you’re going to see black humor, striking images, and a strange sense of playful innocence. As if this strange feverish nightmare world you’re seeing is perfectly normal, and if YOU find it disturbing, then that’s YOUR problem.

Then there’s Sleepy Hollow. I have to say, this is my favorite Burton film, because it strikes me as his most MATURE film. It may have something to do with Kevin Andrew Walker’s script, but this movie has a far different tone than the rest of Burton’s oeuvre. There’s black humor aplenty, and your typical off-kilter Burton imagery, but there’s a real seriousness to the proceedings. This is not a romp through a creepy kid’s playground; this is almost a throwback to the Hammer Studios horror-thrillers of the 1960s. Gory and atmospheric, Sleepy Hollow is a welcome departure from your typical Burton fare.

Our story begins with a montage of images – a Last Will and Testament being signed and sealed with wax, a man and a woman holding hands, etc. – that will eventually make sense as the film’s plot unravels. The next thing we know, Sleepy Hollow squire Peter Van Garret (a cameo by Martin Landau) is attacked in his coach by an unseen assailant on horseback. His driver (his son Dirk) is beheaded, and Van Garret makes a run for it. He doesn’t get very far; after being run down in a cornfield, his head is quite neatly lopped off.

We then shift to New York City, 1799, and meet our hero, Ichabod Crane. Ichabod is a policeman and amateur scientist, whose devotion to the new-fangled ideas of deductive reasoning and forensic investigation cause him to butt heads with a legal system that would much rather implement simple medieval solutions to crimes than actual detective work. When his superiors can no longer stand his grousing, a city official (another cameo by Christopher Lee) orders him to put his vaunted scientific methods to the test: the upstate town of Sleepy Hollow has been plagued by a rash of murders – decapitations, like the one we saw earlier – and local authorities have no leads. Ichabod accepts the commission…and the not-so-subtle implication that if he DOESN’T solve the case, he shouldn’t bother coming back.

Once in Sleepy Hollow, he meets the town fathers – and Katrina; there are sparks flying at first sight – and is told the situation. Three people so far have been killed: the Van Garrets, and a widow named Emily Winship. When Ichabod asks if there are any suspects, he is told the legend of the Headless Horseman. In life, the Horseman was one of the Hessian mercenaries hired by England to fight in the American Revolution. This particular Hessian was noted for his ferocity and cruelty, and he carved a bloody swath through Upstate New York until he was finally cornered in the Western Woods of Sleepy Hollow and decapitated with his own sword. Now, the citizens of Sleepy Hollow believe, the Horseman has risen again, and is taking his revenge on the people of the area.

Being a Stalwart Man of Science™, Ichabod is skeptical of this explanation, and begins investigating possible suspects and possible motives. That very night, a fourth murder takes place: this time a stablehand named Jonathan Masbeth, who had been stationed at a watchtower that night, and saw something that frightened him so much that he ran for his life and was cut down. Masbeth’s son then offers his services to Ichabod in the hopes of avenging his father’s death, and after some cryptic clues from Philipse, Ichabod takes Young Masbeth up on his offer and orders the graves of the victims exhumed. After an autopsy he discovers that the Widow Winship was pregnant, and whoever killed her also stabbed her in the belly, making sure her unborn child was dead as well. As Ichabod puzzles over this revelation, Philipse has a falling-out with the other town fathers and tries to leave town. When Ichabod confronts him, they are attacked…by the Headless Horseman. As Ichabod watches in disbelief, the Horseman chops off Philipse’s head and carries it away.

The incident causes Ichabod to have a slight breakdown (via a patented Johnny Depp-style freak-out), but he comes out of it determined to solve the case. With Young Masbeth at his side (they are later joined by the smitten Katrina), Ichabod sets out for the Western Woods. They get directions from the crazy old Witch of the Woods, and find the Tree of Death that grew from the Horseman’s grave. Ichabod digs up the grave and discovers that the Horseman’s skull is missing. This, he deduces, is why the Horseman is killing: to take heads until his own is restored to him.

Unfortunately, it’s at this exact moment that the Horseman rises and rides into town to take another victim. This time he kills the town midwife and her family. A valiant effort to stop him leaves Brom dead (poor dumb bastard) and Ichabod grievously wounded. However, in the process Ichabod has made a discovery: the Horseman is only killing specific people. The Horseman is a tool being used by someone else…someone who must have his head. As Ichabod recovers from his wound with Katrina’s help, he sets about connecting the murders, to discover the mastermind behind the plot.

Sleepy Hollow has a lot of good things going for it. A re-imagining of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the film has the advantage of being based on one of America’s first true folk tales. Myths and legends are intrinsic qualities to any culture, and Washington Irving was one of the first American mythmakers – ranks that would eventually include James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville – crafting folklore with a distinctly American flavor. And this story is one of those: a ghost story with its roots in the Revolutionary War, set in one of those scattered places on the outskirts of civilization where old European ways meet new American attitudes. It evokes the uncertain dread inherent in the first few years of a new country: the Horseman is quite literally a specter of the past horrors that the country hopes to overcome.

It’s the combination of Kevin Andrew Walker’s script and Tim Burton’s direction that make the adaptation work. The visuals of the film are quite impressive, with dark washed-out colors that evoke sepia and with set designs that are just off-kilter enough to leave a viewer with a vague sense of unease. Sleepy Hollow is a creepy town long before any murdering ghosts or demon-summoning witches show up, and the haunted Western Woods are like something out of a German woodcut. Given such an environment, the conspiracy that Ichabod eventually unravels is not all that unbelievable; small town politics are and always have been ugly, and the further away from civilization the uglier they get. In Walker’s script that interaction of politics takes on the air of a classic whodunit, as we try to make the connections and unravel who is at the heart of all the machinations. As convoluted as the story is revealed to be, thanks to the script it makes a whole lot of sense.

Another great thing about the movie is the way the character of Ichabod Crane is handled. He starts out as a squeamish little man, very smart but not particularly brave, and eventually he finds himself matching wits with the supernatural. He is initially thrown by the realization that there really ARE such things as ghosts, but he overcomes it. And rather than forsake science in favor of some less intellectual solution, he remains a Stalwart Man of Science™, of the like that hasn’t been seen in horror film for a long time. That’s why I liken this film to something made by Hammer: it’s quite violent in a very stylized manner; the characters are memorable and quirky in their own unique ways (making Christopher Lee’s cameo something like a passing of the torch); and the Stalwart Man of Science™ remains our hero. Far too often in supernatural horror movies, the rational person is proved wrong, or finds that their rationality will not help them defeat the evil that is menacing them. Here, Ichabod Crane uses his scientific skills to foil the Horseman, and he largely succeeds. Using deductive reasoning, he figures out the rules of how this haunting works and beats the ghost at its own game. It’s almost as if Johnny Depp’s Crane is a successor to Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing, the man who does battle with evil using intellect rather than faith. Granted, Ichabod Crane is not as kick-ass as Cushing’s Van Helsing (or for that matter, Hugh Jackman’s Van Helsing), but they are one in spirit.

I don’t know why Sleepy Hollow didn’t get a more positive reception when it first came out. Maybe it’s because it’s such an odd duck among the rest of Tim Burton’s works; people just don’t know what to make of it. Personally, I make of it a damned good ride.

Things To Look For:

- Although Christopher Walken plays the Horseman when his head is attached, for the bulk of the movie the character is portrayed by Ray Park, Scottish martial arts champion and stuntman extraordinaire. Park’s done some actual acting, playing short-lived but memorable characters – the most notable being Darth Maul in Star Wars Episode One – who have very few lines, if any. It’s unfortunate that he never really gets to ACT (apparently he has a really delicate Scottish brogue that would make him hard to believe as a serious action hero), but he has a notable physical presence in the movies he’s in. You wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley. That being said, that he has a tendency to play characters that don’t speak, it’s somewhat ironically fitting that here he plays a character that CAN’T speak…because he has no head.

- One of the great indicators of how much more serious this movie is than the rest of Tim Burton’s work is this: the Horseman KILLS A CHILD. When the Horseman kills the midwife and her family, among them is a little boy about six years old. We don’t actually see the boy get killed – the Horseman drags him out of his hiding place, and then a few scenes later we see the Horseman come out of the house stuffing SOMETHING into his Bag-o-Heads – but still…wow. You don’t see that kind of thing very often nowadays, especially in a mainstream film.

- Interspersed throughout the movie are flashbacks that Ichabod has to his childhood, where we learn why he has rejected the path of faith for one of pure empirical thought. These flashbacks are stunning and traumatic, and once we see them we frankly don’t blame Ichabod for losing his faith at the age of seven. It also touches upon a dark period of American history, one that once again shaped the American consciousness, where fanatical faith created self-righteous monsters (some would say it still does). This effectively turns Ichabod Crane into a sort of Everyman figure, representing a new way of thinking, vanquishing the monsters of the old way. Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it…

- Alas, Casper Van Dien, perhaps the most woefully miscast person since someone thought John Wayne would make a great Mongol. This film was the beginning of the end for him; after his small part here it was wrestling with computer-generated pythons and reality TV for him. I never thought he was BAD actor, per se; just very limited. He could play a brawny lunkhead quite well…and that’s about it, really. If only he’d stayed in his niche; sometimes stretching as an actor isn’t the best thing for one’s career.

Date Posted: February 8^th, 2007

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