Sleepy Hollow (1999)

“Sleepy Hollow” is perfect Tim Burton id: Gloriously dark atmosphere spiked with a wicked sense of humor, misfit characters that can only be saved by love, surreal violence, and a god-awful story with stabs of brilliance, but mostly ugly exposition. Burton and screenwriters Andrew Kevin Walker and (un-credited) Tom Stoppard take the Irving story and dump the school teacher for a NYC police constable (Johnny Depp, brilliantly good) advocating science forensics to his detriment in an age -– 1799 -– drunk on religion. Crane is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of lobbed-off heads by a demonic man on a horse, minus his own head, and the latter is no joke, because this is Burton, and magic, evil, and trees of death puking blood abound. Crane’s arrival –- filmed by Emmanuel Lubezki, scored by Danny Elfman, with a set from purgatory –- is marvelous, fused with old Hammer Films and 1931’s classic “Frankenstein.” Brilliant: Depp plays Crane as a heinous wus, using a teenage boy as a human shield. Weak: Huge story errors and a conspiracy-heavy reveal that defies reason. Christopher Walken plays the horseman, growling with devotion to Burton’s majestic dark yearnings. I miss this Burton. B