SLEEPY HOLLOW

Sleepy Hollow is the ultimate Halloween movie and probably the best Tim Burton film where his manic, unique vision is firing on all cylinders.

Everything in it pops. The actors, from Miranda Richardson to Christian Ricci, all walk a tightrope of gothic soap opera without descending into the cartoonish. The set dec (oh man, that set dec!) is pure genius: yellow leaves carpet the forest floor; trees stand like twisted tombstones; Jack o’ Lanterns look stretched and tormented. And Depp actually gives a shit, creating an extremely flawed, terrified character that finds a facsimile of courage to put an end to the Headless Horseman’s reign of terror.

What’s more, Sleepy Hollow is just fun. It’s scary, gory, and delves into some pretty dicey subject matter (spousal abuse, religious intolerance, child murder), but doesn’t wallow in it, retaining a humorous tone that feels more like a Grimm’s Fairy Tale rather than the Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Some of my favorite moments are watching Ichabod Crane act the coward: screaming like a ninny as a spider crawls across his floor, or using his adolescent apprentice as a human shield when they enter a witch’s house. And he does it all without wearing a fucked up hat to define his character!