Movie Review: Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Like every good horror nerd, of course I missed the 20-year anniversary of Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton), one of my favorite movies. But even as I start writing this, I find myself wondering: I’m not sure why I still love this movie so much.
And as the opening rolls, with something red—whether it’s wax or blood, the viewer cannot immediately tell—it jumps out at me: Sleepy Hollow is lurid. A cinematic example of how we most likely imagined the fairy tales and ghost stories we likely read or listened to as children. This is, I would argue, Tim Burton at his best. (The Nightmare Before Christmas predates Sleepy Hollow only by six years, and these two filmic milestones alone mark the ’90s as a very special time for Burton, to me at least.)
The movie, a retelling of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, follows New York constable Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) to the titular sleepy town, which has been plagued by a swath of murders. Though Crane asserts that the killer is a living, breathing man, he will find that the perpetrator is anything but. Sleepy Hollow successfully mixes horror, fantasy, romance and Burton’s hallmark visual style to create an experience that continues to enthrall viewers.
The movie sets and filming locations seemed to be visually reminiscent of what you’d find in the old Universal monster movies—more focused on mood and aesthetics and drama rather than something more period accurate. Actor performances follow a similar cue, delivering a level of drama and thrill that makes the viewer feel as if they’re listening to the story being told around a campfire.
A Timeless Ghost Story
In my rewatch, there are a few touches that stand out to me the most, now: an early shot when Ichabod Crane is riding into the village, a cemetery on one hand, a penned-in herd of sheep on the other; the fog acting with a will of its own to snuff out torches along the village’s boundary. Though clearly more wealthy and well established than their ancestors, the residents’ fight to carve out an existence in Sleepy Hollow during the tail end of the 1700s remains a difficult one, fraught with the dangers of a natural world haunted by supernatural forces.
The disarticulation of bodies—namely heads being separated from necks—is very clearly characterized and colored by Burton’s extensive animation career. And, in retrospect, this is something that remains very special to me about this movie: The blood—the gore—is all very direct, but portrayed in a way that would frighten, but not traumatize, younger viewers.
Movies like this cast the longest shadow over my own childhood because though the language of the film is softened for younger audiences, it still meets them on their level. It remains abundantly clear that Burton and the others working on this project do not take the emotional complexity and intelligence of young people for granted.
(Also, just as a side note: Throughout the past 20 years, it has always stuck with me that Christopher Walken, as the Headless Horseman, isn’t mentioned in the opening credits. Now, this makes me think on Boris Karloff being treated in a similar way in the credits in 1931’s Frankenstein, in which the Monster is only denoted as “... ?” where the actor’s name should be.)
Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci in Sleepy Hollow, image via IMDB
What I’ve grown conflicted about over the years, however, is how women are presented. Though Ichabod’s mother is justifiably seen through the lens of his own memory, greed and vindictiveness seem to largely be the driving motivations for some of the more important women later in the movie. (I’m intentionally leaving this vague in order to prevent spoilers.) In contrast, the men’s belief in the Headless Horseman, though dismissed by Crane, is portrayed as something to be respected due to these men being figures of authority in the village. There is another, later scene where the proverbial voice of truth is also distinctly masculine. And I’ll be honest, Crane immediately being startled awake from a nightmare of his mother into the bosom of Katrina Van Tassel (Christina Ricci) was a mild yikes moment.
Sleepy Hollow remains, however, one of the strongest entries in the world of folklore horror, in my opinion. (This is far and away distinct and separate from folk horror, though I’m still working on developing my own functioning definition.) Though Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is not technically folklore, the role that story has taken in the popular imagination seems to mirror those kinds of stories. The Headless Horseman’s gravesite bleeds, indicating a past that has not healed and continues to haunt the present.
I’ll be the first to admit that my love of this movie is definitely colored by nostalgia. (But I mean, who isn’t that way about their favorite books, movies, and/or TV shows?) Those behind Sleepy Hollow knew exactly what they wanted to do with this movie and they did it well, something I’ve come to cherish deeply, as a number of stories I once loved continue to be plagued with problems of perpetually upping the ante. I still love this movie because at face value, it’s a good time, and despite my criticisms, has held up fairly well over the years. As a movie, Sleepy Hollow remains completely accessible for young and old viewers alike, ensuring its longevity.
Article Written by Laura Kemmerer
Laura tuned into horror with an interest in what these movies and books can tell us about ourselves and what societies fear. She is most interested in horror focused around the supernatural, folklore, the occult, Gothic themes, haunted media, landscape as a character, and hauntology (focusing on lost or broken futures).
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