SLEEPY HOLLOW (1999)

With its painterly physical production (call it high-tone drear) and showoffy cast enjoying every scare & giggle in this re-imagined American legend about Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, what a pity Tim Burton forgot to invite us along on what comes off as a long, stylized, shallow yet sophisticated inside joke.  Johnny Depp’s Ichabod is a crime investigator in this telling, channeling Edgar A. Poe 19th Century ratiocination techniques (a bit before the fact) in hopes of solving a series of decapitations up in Sleepy Hollow, New York.  Instead, he gets a personal ‘I Do Believe In Spooks!  I Do Believe In Spooks!  I Do, I Do, I Do’ revelation.  Yet even with most of the town allied against him, figures out the witch’s curse that has kept the specter on the prowl.  Young Marc Pickering is a standout as a local assistant, and Depp is still in his youthful prime (though overselling the comedy as if he were still Edward Scissorhanding).  But logic is wanting in the horror department and Burton’s ‘action chops’ remain inert as ever.  (Not a decent shock cut in here; and chances are the more effective combat scenes & chases were handed off to second unit specialists.)   Plenty handsome & fun just to look at, but laughs & frights in short supply.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A few years back, a big touring exhibition of Burton’s drawings showed almost no artistic growth over the decades.  So, perhaps it wasn’t bigger budgets that dried up what was so special in those early films, but thin top-soil.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Disney’s animated double-bill THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD/’49 has a great look and Bing Crosby’s singing narration, but sees Ichabod take a backseat to a truly memorable WILD RIDE over at Toad Hall in the opening WIND AND THE WILLOWS abridgement.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-adventures-of-ichabod-and-mr-toad.html