Product Description

An eccentric investigator is sent to the small New York town of Sleepy Hollow to find out who is committing grisly murders there.
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Release Date: 29-DEC-2004
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1916 in DVD
• Brand: DEPP,JOHNNY
• Released on: 2000-05-23
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 105 minutes

Amazon.com
The films of Tim Burton shine through the muck like a jack-o-lantern on a foggy October night. After such successes as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Edward Scissorhands, it should come as no surprise that Sleepy Hollow is a dazzling film, a delicious reworking of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Dark and moody, the film is a thrilling ride back to the turn of the 19th century. Johnny Depp stars as Ichabod Crane, a seemingly hapless constable from New York City who is sent to the small town of Sleepy Hollow to solve the mystery of the decapitations that are plaguing the town. Crane is a bumbling sort, with a tremendous faith in science over mysticism, and he comes up against town secrets, bewitching women, and a number of bodies missing heads. Christina Ricci, as beautiful as ever, is Katrina Van Tassel, the offbeat love interest who alternately charms and frightens Crane.

The film, while occasionally gory (as one should expect from a movie about a headless horseman), is not terribly frightening, although it is suspenseful. Both Depp and Ricci are convincing, and the art direction and production values give the village its harsh feel. Toward the end, once the secrets are revealed, the film does slow down; however, this stylistic horror film provides many tricks and even more treats. --Jenny Brown

Customer Reviews

Well Done and stylish film
Johnny Depp is brilliant. He puts forth a brilliant performance as the man tracking down the feared and mysterious Headless Horseman. As Icobad Crane he is part scientist and part detective. He brings a child like nature to a man who delves into dark things. The film style is brilliant and creates such an eiry feeling throughout. A well done horror film that will keep you on the edge of your seat till the end

Johnny Depp does it again!
The movie Sleepy Hollow (based upon a story by Washington Irving) has an interesting twist in Tim Burtons version. For one thing, Ichabod Crane actually has a
well defined happier ending and he gets the girl. The whole movie is done in classic
Tim Burton style, shadowy, dark, foggy, and kinda gothic but it works for the film. Christopher Lee offers an excellent performance in a small bit part at the very beginning which really sets the mood somehow for the entire movie. Christina Ricci is
all grown up and a fully professional actress and she really shows that also. Johnny
Depp though really steals the show between frequent bouts of fainting and getting blood squirted on him from time to time, his facial expressions and acting ability are
par excellence. This movie is a must for Christopher Lee, Johnny Depp, or Christina Ricci fans for their collection at home because they all really give some of their
best performances in this film. Christopher Walken is good in every movie he stars in so it makes perfect sense he'd be in the best Sleepy Hollow I've ever watched.
He plays the perfect headless horseman and Miranda Richardson apart from having
a very expressive face and beautiful eyes plays her part exceedingly well also.
Halloween can be any time of the year with a Tim Burton flick but we have a tradition at our house of watching Sleepy Hollow or the House on Haunted Hill
around Halloween along with numerous other scary movies. I recommend Sleepy Hollow
for everyones Halloween traditions and movie collection.

Creepy Wallow
There's always a preliminary question for each of these review formats that asks if the reviewer is over 13. In the case of "Sleepy Hollow" I suspect that being under 13 would lead to a much better review. I can imagine a certain percentage of adults would enjoy the sets, the horror, the technology, and the special effects. However, those were the only criteria worthwhile in "Sleepy Hollow" that I found (and they weren't all that much to brag about).

What's wrong with "Sleepy Hollow"? Well, to begin with, the plot is so far removed from reality that it is absurd. There is a note that the movie is based on a story by Washington Irving. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what story that could have been. There were aspects of the story that I might have missed that could have made a dumb plot merely unintelligent. The way people were dropping like flies (or at least their heads were), left me bored with the repetition. I'm glad that it wasn't any more gory that it was but, even so, I lost track of how many decapitations took place (keeping count might have created a certain amount of interest so try it if you plan to watch this movie). There actually was a sort of "List of Adrian Messenger" plot that emerged but, by then, my reaction was, "So what". The acting was overdone and most of the characters were too eccentric or weird to be believable. The nature of horror movies all too often leads to the unnecessary "willing suspension of disbelief". "Sleepy Hollow" is one of those movies; the bad guy could do anything and a few of the good guys could merely survive to live another day.

I have made it a policy of mine to eventually see every full-length Academy Award winner. That's the only reason I watched "Sleepy Hollow". I'm not sure anymore that that is a worthy enough purpose (or perhaps I just need to drop some of the categories). Anyway, lets just hope there's no sequel.