Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Reviews Counted: 126
Fresh: 85 | Rotten: 41
Sleepy Hollow entertains with its stunning visuals and creepy atmosphere.
Average Rating: 6/10
Critic Reviews: 31
Fresh: 20 | Rotten: 11
Sleepy Hollow entertains with its stunning visuals and creepy atmosphere.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 522,659
My Rating
Movie Info
Washington Irving's tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman gets a few new twists in a screen adaptation directed by Tim Burton. In this version, Ichabod (Johnny Depp) is a New York City detective whose unorthodox techniques and penchant for gadgets make him unpopular with is colleagues. He is sent to the remote town of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of bizarre murders, in which a number of people have been found dead in the woods, with their heads cut off. Local legend has it
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Cast
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Johnny Depp
Ichabod Crane -
Christina Ricci
Katrina Van Tassel -
Miranda Richardson
Lady Van Tassel -
Michael Gambon
Baltus Van Tassel -
Casper Van Dien
Brom Van Brunt -
Jeffrey Jones
Reverend Steenwyck -
Christopher Lee
Burgomaster -
Ian McDiarmid
Dr. Lancaster -
Michael Gough
James Hardenbrook -
Christopher Walken
Hessian Horseman -
Marc Pickering
Masbeth -
Lisa Marie
Lady Crane -
Steven Waddington
Killian -
Claire Skinner
Beth Killian -
Alun Armstrong
High Constable -
Mark Spalding
Jonathan Masbeth -
Jessica Oyelowo
Sarah -
Ray Park
Headless Horseman (stun... -
Peter Guinness
Icahbod's father -
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Sleepy Hollow Trailer & Photos
All Critics (129) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (92) | Rotten (41) | DVD (34)
For about an hour it's a fine, ghoulish carnival sideshow, and that has its charms, but there's a thin desperation about the climax.
Top CriticBurton, for all his skill, never ranges beyond the thrills of the obvious; he doesn't enlarge the meaning of the horror he shows us, the way a Brian De Palma might.
Sleepy Hollow has an aesthetic that seems based on album covers. It doesn't feel like the work of an artist in any way.
Even when the narrative stalls from too many detours and decapitations, Sleepy Hollow is gorgeous filmmaking that brims over with fun-house thrills and ravishing romance.
Sleepy looks good, but acting is headless.
The entire film is an eyeful, an odd triumph of old-fashioned filmmaking.
There are lots of slasher movies better than this.
It is a horror film, but it's a Tim Burton horror film. Make no mistake about that.
Burton piles on the artistic gore for this rendition. He just forgets to add the terror.
There may be some problems in the storytelling and exposition departments, but no one would deny the effective visual scheme that creates a fairy tale world in which the existence of a malevolent Headless Horseman ... is completely believable.
The quirks of this Sleepy Hollow prevent it from ever being truly scary, but what they do make it is a quintessentially Burton film.
A film which looks great but, in the end, is not the sum of its body parts.
[Burton's] vision of the ominous woods, the shadowy town, and its pale inhabitants give the film texture and bring it to life.
This updated story is a real showcase for Johnny Depp, whose collaborations with Tim Burton represent some of the actor's best work.
Sleepy Hollow is, above all, beautiful to look at. Instead of using effects to make things look real, Burton makes everything look like a painting.
Burton's visual sensibilties are always breathtaking.
often feels akin to the Hammer horror movies made in England during the 1950s and 1960s, the spooky/gory spectacles that broke new ground in presenting on-screen violence.
The Burton trademark special effects are typically fun, but the late release and lackluster performances make Sleepy Hollow feel exactly like its title: sleepy and hollow.
Audience Reviews for Sleepy Hollow
Super Reviewer
Tim Burton mixes perfectly right amounts of horror, humour and fantasy into a one hell of a exciting whole and that is his very mastery here. He is a perfect director for genre-benders like this. Basically Sleepy Hollow is from it's core nothing more than a forties Hammer-horror in a sleeker package, but Burton takes the Washington Irving's classic tale and turns it, with writer Andrew Kevin Walker, something much more richer.
The Whole film is so thick with it's atmosphere that at times you actually can feel the twisted trees reaching for your neck and ominous fog seems to flow into the audience and living rooms while watching it.
I cannot go without mentioning thing or two about Emmanuel Lubezki's wonderful photography. Rarely has film had such a picturesque quality than here. Burton and his lenser surely knows how to capture the best images and make them stay with you. You also cannot deny the fact that the actors are giving their best here. Veterans like Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson and Jeffrey Jones all make juicy roles among the younger Johnny Depp, whose anti-hero might be his finest hour on the screen, and Christina Ricci whose beautiful and kind-hearted witch is more than just a love interest.
Sleepy Hollow might be a bit too over the top at some places, but at least it is whole lot of fun and one hell of a ride. Especially it's thundering and furious climax is suspense at it's very finest. For the fans of gothic horror this film is a must see.
Super Reviewer
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- Ichabod Crane: [stands covered in blood] Gentlemen, we are dealing with a mad man.
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- Lady Van Tassel: Watch your head!
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- Lady Van Tassel: The horseman comes! And tonight he comes for you!
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- Ichabod Crane: And the head was?
- James Hardenbrook: Taken. Taken by the Headless Horseman. Taken back to Hell.
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- Ichabod Crane: Yes I think you loved me that day when you followed me into the Western Woods... to have braved such peril.
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- Katrina Van Tassel: I think you have no heart. And I had a mind once to give you mine.
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Foreign Titles
- Sleepy Hollow, la légende du cavalier sans tête (FR)
- La leyenda del jinete sin cabeza (ES)
