Known in part for his overt gothic campiness, Tim Burton finally implements his trademark expressionistic sensibilities to their fullest extent in his first full-fledged horror effort, Sleepy Hollow, a film replete with eighteen beheadings–a large portion of which takes place onscreen–and with allusions to the work’s cinematic sponsor, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead series. In the director’s visitation and examination of the Enlightenment, the iconographic filmmaker diverts from his dependency upon image alone as he attempts to cast something of substance. However, in lieu of his celluloid sweat, old habits die hard as the script’s main subplot criminally detracts while spectacle nonetheless takes precedence once again.
Toward the close of 1799, Constable Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) is assigned to take a sabbatical from his efforts to improve the criminal justice system in New York in order to conduct an investigation upon a series of slayings in a nearby village called Sleepy Hollow where four people have recently been beheaded. However, instead of being met with compliance and unabated assistance from the local townsfolk, Sleepy Hollow’s residents persist in citing the legend of the Headless Horseman as the culprit behind the heinous crimes. Crane’s diligent allegiance to reason is tested to its fullest as he attempts to solve the ominous mystery.
Granted, Sleepy Hollow is entertaining in how the redirected image of the central character is plausibly fleshed out, both by its actor as well as its writer (the latter being the screenwriter of David Fincher’s Seven, Andrew Kevin Walker, with uncredited assistance by the consummate Tom Stoppard), as Crane is obligated to become a makeshift coroner in lieu of the fact that the constable has a proclivity to faint upon the slightest hint of the macabre. Equally enjoyable is the clash between the Age of Reason and Medieval folklore as Crane sticks to his philosophic guns in the face of every member of Sleepy Hollow assuring him that a ghost is responsible for the plague of recent deaths. Scathingly, as we reflect back to the open of the film when Crane is “urged” to practice his liberal theories of criminal investigation in a town of little consequence, we realize that the “Big City” is nonetheless prone to skepticism as the tide of shifting thought threatens to come to shore at the behest of one of their own. Moreover, in a scene of succinct brevity, Burton summarizes the theoretical quarrels of the period in a nutshell as he includes religious dogma as a plank within the folklorists’ platform via the bewilderment of the people and the innate sense of repulsion they exhibit when Crane tears open one cadaver after another in search of clues instead of reverently permitting the deceased to rest in peace.
Yet the effectiveness of such an arresting theme and its presentation is diluted–despite a subtle nod to both the climax of James Whale’s Frankenstein and Cervantes’s famed figure of (anti-)reason, Don Quixote, in the form of an iconic windmill, the symbol for the whole of the movement of which Crane is a proponent. The insertion of a motif of seeing–both literally and mentally, represented in Crane’s fascination and incorporation of state-of-the-art optics as he journeys further and further down the road of logic and rationality, atop Burton’s seemingly throw-away flashbacks which cleverly reveal the psychoanalytic motive for why Crane adamantly upholds the virtue of reason–is superceded by a flaccid romantic subplot between our lead and Depp’s opposite, Christina Ricci, who ultimately plays a secondary role due to how little of an influence her character of Katrina Van Tassel exerts upon the proceedings.
Though we remain intrigued as Burton forces our alliance to shift between the townspeople’s unwavering position and Crane’s avant-garde interpretation of the matter at hand as we eagerly anticipate the promised mystery-solving epiphany which will resolve who is ultimately the winner of the haggard debate, sadly–once the revelation arrives–it comes in the form of an overly verbose plot exposition by Crane, posited at great length and with way too much gusto by a director who, until that time, staked his reputation on a reliance and preference for image over word as “Show, Don’t Tell” is, once again, a hard lesson learned, especially for a veteran filmmaker. Even worse, those enthralled by Burton’s surprisingly admirable–given its scope (and the director’s proclivity for the carefree fable)–address and portrayal of an entire philosophical period are left scratching their heads as they futilely attempt to reconcile the purpose behind an arbitrary Christ figure, albeit of an ilk quite different from traditional depiction of such.
As he has perpetually done throughout his career, Tim Burton tantalizes with the promise–moreso in his very liberal retelling of Washington Irving’s early American gothic than the director had previously done–to serve his audience something more, something by which to fill our unjustly underfed souls. Indeed, amid the explicitly horrific imagery (which, to the filmmaker’s credit, is never gratuitous) and story–the tone of which had not been met by Burton since Edward Scissorhands was released almost a decade prior–a few ideas are presented, yet they are neither of great value or interest anymore than they are adequately explored to any satisfactory degree as yet another visual appetizer is brought to the table by the hyperactive, yet hollow, mind of Tim Burton once again. In short, Sleepy Hollow’s agenda attempts to do too much on paper as it bows under the burden of the director retaining his visual signature while his storyline unsuccessfully tries to accommodate a metaphor for the period writ large all amid a bungled, inconsequential love affair.
-Egregious Gurnow
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- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
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- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
