Alright.
Regular readers will know that I’m a fan of Washington Irving’s short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow . What you
might not know, and what I myself didn’t know until I watched it last night,
was whether I was a fan of Tim Burton’s film adaptation of “Sleepy Hollow.”
Turns out I am not.
I
mean, it was an alright movie. Johnny Depp was entertaining as Ichabod Crane,
of course. And on the Halloween-movie spectrum of spooky vs. slasher it
definitely tended toward the former, which is a good thing in my book. But what
on earth did it have to do with Irving’s original story? Not a whole
heckuvalot.
There
were some recognizable character names, not to mention the 18th
century Hudson Valley setting…. aaaaand that’s about it. They transformed
Ichabod from a skittish country schoolmaster to an indignant New York City
constable. Then they invented a complicated cabal of village elders and
backstabbing occult characters, and turned the whole thing into a serial-killer
murder mystery where the headless horseman isn’t even the villain by the end of
the movie.
Is
it a passable Halloween diversion? Sure. But if you’re looking for a faithful
literary adaptation, I’ll point you instead to the Bing Crosby-narrated Disney
classic.