Review of Sleepy Hollow (1999) by Jesse O — 17 Sep 2015

It's been a long time since I've seen this movie. I seem to remember seeing parts of it on TV, but I did actually go see this movie in the theaters. I must have been 11 or so at the time when I went to saw it.

My mom was cool like that. Anyway, for some reason, I had a desire to watch this movie again. I will say that, while this movie probably doesn't hold up as well, I had a lot of fun going back and revisiting this movie.

One of the things that I must say is that the gore and practical special effects look absolutely fantastic, even 16-17 years after the fact. Granted the film did cost $100 million to make, so they'd have more money to make it look better, but even with that, the movie's decapitations and decapitated heads look pretty fantastic.

Usually in horror movies, when they show the severed head, it looks absolutely nothing like the actor portraying them. Not in this film, the heads look eerily similar to the actors, to the point where it's almost creepy to see them.

And the actual editing for when the horseman, or anyone else for that matter, cuts the heads off of people looks excellent. So, for me, that part of the film holds up better than even films that came out in the last five years.

The cinematography is also fantastic, like a dark Gothic horror film come to life. It, obviously, pays tribute to Hammer films in this approach. It should be obvious to any fan of Hammer films that parts of this film were obviously tributes.

With that said, it still falls in line with Tim Burton's visual style and approach to cinematography in his movies. And, no surprise, before he became a Disney mascot, Johnny Depp is real entertaining here.

What I like about Depp's portrayal of the character is the fact that, as a hero, he's pretty damn ineffectual. He faints at the slightest hint of blood or gore or just plain being scared and he's also afraid of spiders.

He also hides behind women and children when he's facing something that might be dangerous. I definitely liked how Johnny Depp portrayed the character. And it's actually, more in line, with his post-Pirates efforts than his films prior to Sleepy Hollow.

It's a little more goofy and funny. With that said, I think the film's narrative isn't great, though it makes up for it with some great atmosphere and gore. Though I will admit that the film embraces the B-movie thrills like nobody's business.

It's a fun movie to watch honestly and the fact that it's gory means that it's probably a lot of fun to watch with a group of friends. I will say that the film, while not being great, does craft a pretty interesting mystery to figure out that I, honestly, had forgotten all about, so it's like watching it for the first time all over again.

So that was good. It's not the best of Burton's and Depp's collaborations, Dark Shadows would have take that dubious honor, but it's far from the worst and it's, quite frankly, a lot of fun to watch in spite of that.

I'd recommend it if you haven't seen it yet, it's a good and entertaining horror film.