There are some things from your past that stick with you even if you don’t realize they do. When I was a child, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was the first story I ever read on my own that scared the hell out of me. The Disney version freaked me out as well and I remember avoiding it whenever it was on television (keeping in my that back then my options were few…we didn’t get cable television until I was in junior high!). As I got older, I never gave it much thought, but if anyone mentioned anything connected to Sleepy Hollow, I’d get chills. So, as much as I like Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, there was not one part of me that ever felt compelled to see this film.
But it’s October, the time for scary movies and I needed a film to watch today that was short. So Sleepy Hollow won out.
It’s a good film. Interesting story, top-notch acting, and the sets and costumes were fabulous. There was only one problem with it: It wasn’t scary.
I feel like I’m missing something. I guess the intention was to be over the top but instead of over the top I just found the comedic aspects of the film hokey. Sure, I guess it’s supposed to be funny that all the supernatural stuff freaks out Ichabod Crane, but that works much better when Crane is a school teacher. Crane as a policeman but still a chicken really doesn’t work for me.
It did keep me interested, though. I couldn’t imagine how they were going to make the Horseman real and the legend actually being true was a great touch. But I was terribly disappointed that none of it frightened me.