When I was a kid, my dad would often show me films I was way too young to be watching; Fright Night, From Dusk Till Dawn, Evil Dead, and while I've grown up to love some of them, mainly Fright Night, all the others left me with was vivid memories of the scariest things I'd ever seen, and there's no other film that bored its way into my nightmares quite like this one; Sleepy Hollow. And since Halloween is less of a day and more of a lifestyle, and I'm both very lazy and very grinchy, there are also few films as fitting to the occasion as this one, and you only need to watch five minutes of it to see why.
Sleepy Hollow's opening sequence is peak Halloween; as Van Garret's carriage trundles through a corn field in the dead of night, carrying the will that starts this ball rolling, he looks out of the window and sees a scarecrow looming over the crop, a jack-o'-lantern atop its shoulders. Things quickly escalate from there are a mystery horseman rushes past the carriage, and after the sound of a sword unsheathing and the whoosh of a swing, Van Garret looks out the window to see his driver missing his head. Van Garret tries to escape into the corn, eventually finding himself at the scarecrow, where the mystery horseman relieves him of his head, with a close up of the scarecrow's face with Van Garret's blood on it. This opening sequence tells you everything you need to know, it establishes Sleepy Hollow not as a horror film, but more as a mood piece, because it's not just this intro that's peak Halloween, it's the entire film. It being Tim Burton, there are also a lot of Tim Burtonisms in this film, an obvious example of which is Johnny Depp playing an eccentric, pale faced weirdo, this time he's Ichabod Crane, a New York police Constable who firmly believes that there is a better way to do justice, much to the annoyance of his superiors. Crane is one of the film's most charming elements and as a protagonist in this kind of story, he's perfect. He's polite, well meaning, determined, but he's also squeamish and cowardly, lacks concern for judgement of his occupation and practices, and is way out of his depth when he comes face to face, or rather not, with the Headless Horseman. 
Crane's character also has an element of mystery to him as he regularly has nightmares of himself as a child, slowly remembering the horrors of his childhood, and it gets pretty fucked up as we learn just where his scepticism of religion came from, as well as the odd scars on his hands. There is a sense that the world is against him in this film, from his introduction as an unconventional constable preaching a 'better' way of dealing justice, to his arrival in Sleepy Hollow, a cramped, foreboding setting, rife with fear, distrust and hostility, but it's Crane's commitment to justice and determination to solve the murders, even in the face of so much doubt, adversity and unfathomable horror, that makes him such a compelling protagonist. As weak and cowardly as he is, he just wants to do the right thing, which puts in conflict not just with the Horsemen, but with the elders of Sleepy Hollow. The elders serve less as characters and more as functions of the plot; with each one having a hand in the Van Garret conspiracy, they're an insular gang, more than happy to keep their secrets if it means keeping their heads, literally. They're what give the film its twists and turns, with a solid amount of revelations and red herrings to keep the intrigue alive into the film's final act. Baltus Van Tassel, one of our red herrings, also completely kills it with his story of the Horseman, which is one of the film's coolest scenes, one of, but since it's Michael Gambon, that's not very surprising.
Then there's his daughter, Katrina, serving in the dual role of love interest and yet another red herring, but like a lot of romances in films, or good ones anyway, it's very much in the shadow of the mystery of the Horseman and the Van Garrets. In typical murder mystery fashion, the film is full of suspects, and among them is weaved a genuinely compelling web of mystery and betrayal. But sadly, this isn't a film where the innocent can have peace, with the suspects being whittled down as much through elimination as by Crane's investigations. The film isn't special as a who done it though, it's special in other areas, but that aspect of the film is very serviceable, and made more so by its intriguing and likable heroes. One character that stands out is Masbath, simply because he's the only character in the film that has balls; an orphan that becomes Crane's apprentice, he's seemingly the only person in the town with the bravery to take on the mystery, while also being intelligent enough to not get himself killed. But what makes him so damn likable is his comedic timing; he's the funniest character in the film, even more so than Crane with all of his Johnny Deppisms, and the pair have a lot of great scenes together. But Crane and Masbath, as charming and funny as they can be together, are both in the shadow of the real show stealer of Sleepy Hollow; the Horseman.
How this film's Headless Horseman can best be described in my opinion is a cross between Michael Keaton's Batman and a T-800, and the film sells both the mystery and horror of him and his relentless badassery brilliantly. For a while, you don't get a good look at him, the film obscuring him with close ups and visual obstructions, building to the moment where he is fully revealed, bursting from the treeline, sword in hand to claim the night's victim. He is a constant presence throughout the film, and the scenes where he appears are easily the best. His origins are morbid and intriguing; being a mercenary fighting the Americans in the revolutionary war for the sake of causing death and destruction, before being beheaded and buried in the western woods. But despite being a psychotic butcher in life and a killing machine in death, he's just so damn cool, again, he's like a T-800, he just keeps coming. The scenes of people trying to fight him are a lot of fun, as brief and futile as they are, and in addition to being a master swordsman, the Horseman is a clever bastard, as demonstrated in more than one of the film's standout moments. He carries a lot of this film to be honest, you're always looking forward to seeing him again, as despite not having a head, the Horseman exhibits a lot of personality through his body language and behaviour. Though he was a monster in life, in death, he is really just a tool, his kills are not indiscriminate, and the payoff he gets in the film's final moments is amazing, it's absolutely amazing, with everyone getting what they want, except for our real monster, our conspirator, who the Horseman drags back to hell with him, finally finding the peace that was taken from him. 
Like a lot of good horror films, Sleepy Hollow's strength is as much in its presentation as it is in its characters and storytelling; a badass villain and charming and endearing band of heroes is one thing, but if your film has all the flair of an overly floury gingerbread, it'll always feel like it's missing something, and luckily, Sleepy Hollow isn't lacking in its presentation. As I said at the beginning, this film is peak Halloween; the setting, the costumes, the music, the violence, the colours, everything about this film just screams spooky. The music, composed by Danny Elfman, is instantly memorable; it's creepy, intense, atmospheric, and is as beautiful in the film's quieter moments as it is in the film's more bombastic sequences of action and murder. It's a soundtrack that once made me shudder, but now it fills me with a sort of sick glee. And while the film's visual style may look dull and unappealing at first glance, it doesn't take long for the mood of the film's visuals to seep in, for the drab, bleak skies and lifeless, misty forests of the film to take on a life of their own. And in stark contrast to the bleak colours, the film frequently explodes with colour, just one colour though, red. Sleepy Hollow's violence is very extreme, even if the violence itself is relatively tame, it's the film's use of blood and colour that makes these moments so effective, because the film's blood is very red, too red, like the colour of a bell pepper, and it sticks out like a sore thumb against the rest of the film's muted and desaturated appearance. 
This is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your perspective, either it looks cheap and silly, or it gives the film's moments of horror a sense of power and weight that they otherwise wouldn't have had, like, for example, seeing the bright red blood covering a white fence post after the Horseman harpoons someone through the chest with it, it's something that sticks out, pun intended, its something visually striking, and that's a good way to describe the film in general, it looks striking. Sleepy Hollow is a very visual film, and this aspect of it is actually one of the best things about it, and in a novel twist, it's the moments when the film turns up the colour that are the most intense and violent. Surely at this point I'd have brought up the film's negatives, but I don't think this film has any glaring flaws, sure, some of the CG is a bit rough around the edges, it is twenty years old, after all, but I think I said this in my Hellboy review, CGI is a tool, and bad CG doesn't break a film, bad CG can add to the mess if the film is already broken like Hellboy, but Sleepy Hollow isn't broken, it's a cohesive, moody little bundle of horror, one where the presentation more than makes up for the Witch's CG snake eyes looking a bit shit. Aspects of its storytelling can also be a bit corny, it being a period film and all, but once again, it's only as bad as you allow it to be, you can go along for the ride and find that this adds even further to the film's quirky charm, and feels more at home than if these eighteenth century Americans were talking like it was 1999. The film is just too charming to be bogged down by its flaws, its too weird and too quirky and, to put it bluntly, too sincere, which is in no way a bad thing.
Truth is Not Always Appearance
Sleepy Hollow is The Polar Express of Halloween movies, it's not perfect, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it is a film that feels so utterly at home in the season, while a good Christmas film fills you with wonder and joy and warmth, a good Halloween film oppresses you with its atmosphere and mood, relishing in the horror and joy of the holiday in all of its sugary goodness and spooky traditions. And me being much more of a Halloween person, that makes this film right up my street, and while it may not be a Halloween tradition for me like John Carpenter's Halloween, it's a film I'll watch from time to time with the same joy and excitement as the time it stopped terrifying me. Sleepy Hollow is definitely worth watching.
No comments:
Post a Comment