Rating: 
Summary: I laughed until I cried
Review: I originally saw this in the theatre- very beautiful to look at, but unfortunately, none too scary. Tim Burton's work is always lovely to look at and you will not be disappointed in his artistic vision. You need to see this in DVD if you had not seen it in a theatre. Be prepared to laugh though-think of me when you hear Depp shriek in horror about "HE had NO HEAD!" It had us rolling in the aisles. 3 stars for that scene alone.
Rating: 
Summary: Cute Hammer-style Horror Fantasy.
Review: Sleepy Hollow maintains a fine balance between horror and humour, which is why the comparisons to the British Hammer Horrors are apt. Johnny Depp is thoroughly likeable as Ichabod Crane, the constable who refuses to give up his scientific methods despite the people of Sleepy Hollow's superstitions.He has been sent from New York, where the police department are sick of his persistence, to investigate the mysterious deaths in the small, backwards community... apparently at the hands of a Headless Horseman. The year is 1799. Christina Ricci supplies the love interest and some of the film's best moments. Tim Burton routinely presents us with visually exciting films, and Sleepy Hollow is no exception. It looks stunning. The effects are top-notch. And his compositions are suitably comic book. It is a film with its chilling moments, but there's a lot of laughter - both for the jokes and the nervous variety. This movie certainly lives up to the standards set by the two previous Burton/Depp collaborations, Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood.
Rating: 
Summary: A MUST SEE
Review: This is an instant classic. A must see for anyone who is into a gothic type of movie. I also recomend the book.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully spooky
Review: If you grew up having Grimm's fairy tales read to you, and you loved them, this movie is for you. Tim Burton and the marvelous cast do an incredible job of creating a hauntingly beautiful movie. The sets and photography are superb. The movie is taunt, but has the somewhat dreamy quality that the best of the old fairy tales do. It is scary without being horrible or horrifying, and the violence is somewhat restrained. I expect to view this movie, with children, many times, and each time to be transported into a wonderful world where children are good but vulnerable, stepmothers are wicked, and evil appears triumphant but is ultimately vanquished.
Rating:
Summary: Mleh.
Review: Nothing too impressive here, but nothing to yawn at either. This movie was stunning in its ability to keep me watching but not terribly concerned if Depp kept his head or not. Ricci is as good as she always is (incredibly good, for those not in the know), but she hardly saves this film from the gargantuan reign of medicority that permeates its every crevice. Effects were good. Walken was also cool, seeing as he was acting sans head. I guess I've just grown to expect more from Burton inimitable genius. This movie is a renter, plain and simple.
Rating:
Summary: Sleepless in Sleepy Hollow
Review: As I recall it from my school days, Washington Irving's tale The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was a charming little story of a timid school master, Ichabod Crane, who comes to the rustic hamlet of Sleepy Hollow to teach, and who soon casts his eye on the local beauty Katrina, thus raising the ire and jealousy of her beau, Brom, who warns Ichabod to beware the Headless Horseman, an apparition terrorizing the countryside. Soon, on a dark night, Ichabod meets the Horseman and is frightened out of his wits, and out of town, leaving Katrina to Brom, who had, of course, made up the whole story and had disguised himself as the Horseman. No heads rolled and no blood was spilled. Tim Burton's version, Sleepy Hollow, is deeper and much darker. The Headless Horseman is a fiend from Hell, riding out to lop off heads at the bidding of the evil witch who has learned his secret and who now controls him. Heads roll, but there is very little bloodletting in this film. When a man is decapitated, there is no fountain of spurting blood, as there would normally be. That's because the Horseman's sword is still hot from hellfire and cauterizes the wounds it inflicts. Blood is used, however, for comedic effect, as when Ichabod autopsies a corpse and a little blood squirts into his eye at the first incision. Ichabod Crane in this movie is a New York City police constable, a rebel with a cause -- scientific crime investigation -- who is a nuisance to his superiors, who don't believe in such new-fangled science as autopsies, pathology, and deductive reasoning, and who send him off to solve a series of murders in upstate New York in the small village of Sleepy Hollow. Upon arrival he is apprised of the murders, and the identity of the murderer, the Headless Horseman, a Hessian mercenary who was killed 20 years ago during the American Revolution. Naturally Ichabod doesn't believe this, and sets out to find the real killer, using his scientific methods of investigation. Johnny Depp portrays Ichabod Crane as a man of contradictory characteristics -- he is stalwart and resolute when needs be, but is afraid of bugs and spiders and uneasy with horses, and is prone to fainting spells. He is somewhat timid at times, too, and not above hiding behind the boy Young Masbath in the witch's hut in the Western Woods, or even behind Katrina when facing danger, but he rises to the occasion in the end. He doesn't believe in the supernatural, but is haunted by dreams of his supernatural mother, who was put to death by his own father for practicing witchcraft. So he's a man tormented by his own ghosts, sent to seek out and destroy someone else's ghost. This is an engrossing movie, but it has some flaws. One of which is the color photography, or rather, the lack of it. The color is so washed out, I though the movie was in black and white at first. This pale cinematography gives the effect wanted, that of a gray, overcast, moody landscape, full of foreboding, but it's overdone, making one think the sun never shines on Sleepy Hollow. The interiors could have, at least, been well-lighted. The film is set in the year 1799, just a few days before the turn of the century to 1800, and Ichabod in an early scene speaks of the coming 19th century as the "new millennium." Sorry, Ichabod, but millenniums only come around every 1,000 years, so 1800 is just the turn of the century, not the millennium. One more complaint about the cinematography -- the stroboscopic lighting during the climax is unnecessary and extremely distracting! Not even a Perfect Storm would have that much thunder and lightning! The strobing lasts much too long, and has become a cliché in the horror/thriller genre. Good directors should avoid it. As they should the standard long exposition scene, where the evil villain explains in speech and flashbacks the convoluted plot twists, which is so reminiscent of any episode of Murder, She Wrote. But that's always been necessary in murder mysteries, so I guess it's unavoidable even by the best directors and writers. The plot has to be explained somehow, and Sleepy Hollow has a somewhat complicated one, with many characters who are not clearly identified at first. As with Depp, the rest of the cast is quite effective. Christopher Walken is the Hessian Horseman, head attached, but without a single line of dialog. He just scowls and growls a lot, flashing his sharpened teeth and even sharper sabre. Ray Park plays the Horseman in the scenes sans head. Christina Ricci is the enchantress Katrina, the would-be witch who bewitches Ichabod Crane. Miranda Richardson is her wicked stepmother Lady Van Tassel. Martin Landau (Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Ed Wood) has a cameo appearance as Peter Van Garrett, and so does the veteran horror star Christopher Lee as The Magistrate of New York. Michael Gough, another veteran of horror, is the Notary James Hardenbrook. A fine cast in a fine movie, worthy of multiple viewings.
Rating:
Summary: IT CHILLED ME TO THE BONE!
Review: This movie was a wonderful thriller. It had an amazing cast of actors and actressess in it. The acting was superb, the makeup and costumes were gorgeous, and the special effects were great.If I were a movie critic I would give Sleepy Hollow two thumbs up!
Rating:
Summary: Terrific Film, But Another Disappointing Commentary Track
Review: Tim Burton clearly enjoys his craft. Like BATMAN, BEETLEJUICE, and every other Burton feature, everything about SLEEPY HOLLOW looks and feels right. The colors are slightly washed out, giving the film a creepy, slightly surreal nature; trees don't just grow upward, but rather gnarl themselves into screaming wooden sculptures -- atmosphere and sets are as important as characterization in a Burton piece, and SLEEPY HOLLOW never disappoints in any of these elements. Like any Burton film, SLEEPY HOLLOW -- as a film -- is well worth owning. However, SLEEPY HOLLOW as a DVD leaves only a bit to be desired -- due once again to a sub-par Director's Commentary track. I believe filmmaking is, for Burton, an intensely personal experience. And for this reason, I think Burton -- who seems painfully shy at moments -- has a difficult time discussing such a personal craft comfortably. The Director's commentary for the film, while sometimes interesting, still doesn't provide the viewer with the sort of payoff most are probably looking for and may expect from a visionary like Burton. The commentary certainly has its moments -- such as Burton's constant guffaws at Jeffrey Jones' impossibly huge wig, or his use of the word "amazing" so many times that you'll start counting them -- but if you're looking for some behind-the-scenes moments or discussion of the craft of specific scenes, you won't find much of it here. Burton nips at the edges -- he does a good job, for instance, talking about some of the actors and his admiration for them -- but those Wow-That's-Really-Interesting moments viewers like to find in director's commentaries are missing. A bit more helpful is the "Behind The Legend" featurette, which shows some of the surprisingly complicated lengths the filmmakers went through to make even some of the smallest moments just right, such as digitizing the faces of skeletons in the flames of a fire. The featurette also put to rest debates we had in our household about how the crew had pulled off the Headless Horseman bit -- is it a guy in a built up costume? Is it all special effect? Or a bit of both? The featurette will show you. Good stuff. SLEEPY HOLLOW is Burton at his finest -- his natural tendencies as a filmmaker seem to lean toward this kind of creepy period piece -- but the craft Burton puts into his film doesn't come through on the commentary track. It's a shame, because Burton is clearly trying to put into words his enthusiasm for his film. He just never quite gets there. Fortunately, while Burton's gifts aren't readily apparent on the commentary, they are in full display in the film itself. Five stars for the film itself, but the director's commentary (like his commentary for PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE) pulls the overall rating for this one down just a notch to a four.
Rating:
Summary: Funny and scary!
Review: How can I describe the feeling when I see "Sleepy Hollow." Though I just saw it last night on Showtime for the first time, it blends a little comedy along with the horror-based story of a headless horseman decapitating certain people. Scary, dark, amusing, this is also visually entertaining and Depp gives a good performance as Crane. Rated R for graphic violence/gore and brief language.
Rating:
Summary: "You're Just In Time To Get Your Head Cut Off!" :)
Review: Filmmaker Tim Burton was the perfect choice to bring this adaptation of Washington Irving's creepy classic to the big screen. No one can match his ability to create an atmosphere that is both creepy and whimsical, and you can see it in full force here. The sets and designs in Sleepy Hollow are just as much stars in the movie as are the actors. Of course, the stars are hardly overshadowed because Burton also has a talent for getting actors best suited for his projects. Johnny Depp is a great actor who enjoys taking unconventional roles, and he manages the fine line between Ichobod's timidity and his nobility extremely well. Christina Ricci and Miranda Richardson are great, too. Plus, any fan of Burton's movies will find a lot of familiar faces here as well (most notably Jeffrey Jones, Michael Gough and Martin Landau). There were just two minor problems I had with the movie. First, the beheadings turn out to be more deliberate than I would have hoped (random killings are always scarier), and Casper Van Dien's role should have been banished to the cutting room floor. Still, these are minor quibbles compared to the quick-moving plot, haunting visuals and really good casting that make Sleepy Hollow an unforgettable movie. On the other hand, Paramount's tradition of weak DVD extras continues unbroken with this offering. The "Making-Of" documentary is little more than a 20 minute commercial, and Tim Burton's commentary is boring and not the least bit insightful. It's enough to knock my rating down a notch, but the DVD is worth owning based on the movie alone.
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