The phantasmagoric imagination of Tim Burton seamlessly combines the adult sensibility of the horror tale and the cartoony delights of a children’s story, using a fairytale form to deal with death, destruction and the rest of the darker side of the human psyche. It is this vision
that provides Burton’s fantastical films with much of their power, from Edward Scissorhands’s narrative of a beautiful mutant to the peeved ghosts of Beetlejuice, who call up a very tricky – and very funny – demon of that name.
Sleepy Hollow, based on the Washington Irving story, is about an 18th-century rural town which is being terrorised by a mysterious horseman – a headless one, nogal, who is given to galloping about and lopping off people’s heads. Johnny Depp plays Ichabod Crane, whose sense of fairness and advanced methods of detection are not endearing him to the brutal New York justice system. Thus he is sent (by the burgomaster, played by Christopher Lee in one of several references to the classic British Hammer House of Horror films of the Fifties) to upstate Sleepy Hollow to find out what is really going on.
Crane is a rationalist, and wants to find a rational explanation for the losses of so many heads. He sets great store by what he sees as meticulous scientific observation, aided by a battery of newfangled tools like magnifying glasses and chemical potions. Such methods may seem primitive to an audience au fait with the procedural details of cop movies and TV shows, but this is precisely the source of much anachronistic irony and viewer enjoyment.
Depp also has a great deal of fun with the personality of Ichabod Crane, who is fierily determined to get to the bottom of things but also has to deal with his own squeamishness in the face of gore – as well as his own newly awakened fears. Ichabod is fussy and nervy, but still heroic, and as attractive as only Depp and his cheekbones can make him.
Christina Ricci, with her pale moon face and bloated eyeballs, not to mention the whiff of a childhood spent in the bosom of the Addams family, is ideally cast as Katrina van Tassel, daughter of the house into which Ichabod is taken during his stay in Sleepy Hollow. The romance that blooms between them is nicely done, and made eerily ambiguous as the policeman’s suspicions multiply.
British actors Michael Gambon and Natasha Richardson bring their accustomed skills to portraying the elder Van Tassels (and note the range of delightfully bizarre names – Brom van Brunt is another), as do a few
other British luminaries. Besides the aforementioned Lee, there are Ian McDiarmid and Michael Gough (who also worked for Hammer) to play townspeople who may or may not be implicated in the murders. Clearly, though, as with the American actors Jeffrey Jones and Christopher Walken, Burton has cast them for their interesting physiognomies as much as for their thespian prowess.
Besides all that, and the thrills it conjures up, Sleepy Hollow looks marvellous. Created largely in British studios (by Brits Les Tomkins, Terry Apsey and Peter Young, who collaborated with Burton on Batman), its houses and woods have the right historical feel while adding the necessary touch of dark whimsy to the story. On top of that, the special effects – especially the rolling and spinning of lopped-off heads – are impeccably delivered.
The film’s brilliant, painterly cinematography overarches all these elements. It seems to be practically in black and white, though that really means a myriad tones of grey, with colour used minimally. This gives it a look reminiscent of a burnished daguerrotype, as well as contributing, of course, to the haunted, moody atmosphere. It all adds up to a
superbly, er, heady entertainment.