Sleepy Hollow (Film Review)

1999 Paramount Pictures
Directed by: Tim Burton; Written by: Andrew Kevin Walker
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, and Jeffrey Jones
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 106 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 8/10

Constable Ichabod Crane is used to investigating grisly New York City murders, but nothing has prepared him for his assignment to a rural, upstate town called Sleepy Hollow. Several townsfolk's heads have been mysteriously cut clean off by a weapon that seemingly cauterizes the wound...and the purported killer is a supernatural, headless horseman. Even worse, though, are the town's interpersonal politics, which make Crane's own head spin. Can the science-obsessed Crane solve the non-scientific mystery of the headless horseman, save the town, and keep his own head intact?
1999's Sleepy Hollow has got to be one of the finest displays of style over substance ever committed to celluloid. Director, Tim Burton, and his production crew, create a beautiful, dark, autumnal storybook world, full of shadows, fog, skeletal limbs, and swirling leaves. Prosthetics chief, Kevin Yagher, ensures beheadings never looked so good, and boy are there plenty of them here. Meanwhile, everything else, from the costuming, to Danny Elfman's score exudes creepy excellence. 
As for the plot, written by Seven-scribe, Andrew Kevin Walker, there's not a lot of depth here. However, the film does manage to successfully follow a basic supernatural crime procedural template, just emerged in a vat of thick atmosphere not generally found elsewhere. Depp is quite good as the science-focused constable, as is a surprisingly blond Christina Ricci as his love interest. The supporting cast is a veritable who's who, from Albus Dumbledore, to Alfred Pennyworth, to Emperor Palpatine. There are some very surface level themes here about science vs the supernatural, etc., but the reason to watch this film is generally aesthetic, and when the aesthetics are this high level, a thematically rich story and deep characters would have just been lagniappe.