Atmospheric...but not scary. (Sleepy Hollow (DVD))

Member Name: Tara

Product:	Sleepy Hollow (DVD)
Date:	12/11/00 (14 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Atmospheric. Lots of stars.

Disadvantages: The romance, the plot and the lack of scary bits.

Johnny Depp plays Icabod Crane, a nervous, not very bright, un-heroic, detective constable from New York, sent to the little village of Sleepy Hollow to use the latest scientific methods to discover the truth behind numerous murders in which the victim’s heads were apparently stolen by a headless horseman.

Having looked forward to see this film, I was actually quite disappointed with it. On it’s plus side it is very atmospheric. Sleepy Hollow is a place where the sun never shines and it is forever cold and dark and damp. The scenes in which the horseman (a crazy soldier when he was alive) thunders down through the mist are also very good.

But the acting from the main characters is quite melodramatic and it’s certainly not very scary, although the scenes in which victims are beheaded are extremely vivid and very gory.

I also think the love interest which sparks between local girl Catrina (Christina Ricci) and Icabod seemed highly unlikely and quite a pointless twist in the tale.

The plot is also very bad, for most of the time very dull and very confusing, particularly in the middle, when it becomes mixed with Icabod’s flashbacks.

To be fair, it does improve in the last fifteen minutes or so, in which the dark secret is revealed. It has a haunting soundtrack and a star-studded cast, with Miranda Richardson and Michael Gambon taking the parts of Catrina’s Father and Stepmother, and Alun Armstrong, Ian Richardson and Richard Giffiths also starring.

Summary: