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Sleepy Hollow
Skeptical young detective Ichabod Crane gets transferred to the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow, New York, where he is tasked with investigating the decapitations of three people – murders the townsfolk attribute to a legendary specter, The Headless Horseman.
1999 · Directed by Tim Burton · 105 min · Fantasy · Thriller · Mystery · Horror · Screenplay in the scene database · 12 frames
Tagline
Heads will roll.
Plot
In the fall of 1799, pragmatic New York City constable Ichabod Crane is sent to the upstate Dutch village of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of brutal decapitations of its residents, which included landowner Peter Van Garrett, his son Dirk, and widow Emily Winship. Received by the insular town elders—wealthy farmer Baltus Van Tassel; doctor Thomas Lancaster; the Reverend Steenwyck; notary James Hardenbrook; and magistrate Samuel Philipse—Ichabod learns that the locals believe the killer is the undead apparition of a headless Hessian mercenary, who is trying to find his missing head.
Skeptical of the paranormal explanation, Ichabod begins his investigation and settles in the house of the Van Tassels, becoming romantically attached to Baltus' spiritual daughter, Katrina. After Van Garrett's servant, Jonathan Masbath, becomes the next victim, his teenage son volunteers as Ichabod's assistant. On a tip from Philipse, Ichabod and Young Masbath exhume the bodies of the victims and learn that the widow died pregnant. Shortly after, Ichabod witnesses the Hessian killing Philipse. Together with Masbath and Katrina, Ichabod goes to the Western Woods, where a crone reveals the location of the Hessian's grave at the "tree of the dead", his portal into the living world. Ichabod digs up the grave and discovers the Hessian's remains without a skull, deducing that it has been taken in order to control him.
That night, the Hessian kills town midwife Beth Killian and her family, as well as Katrina's suitor, Brom Van Brunt, when he attempts to intervene. Ichabod hypothesizes that the Hessian is attacking selected targets linked by a conspiracy. Ichabod and Masbath visit Hardenbrook, who unwittingly reveals that Van Garrett had secretly married Winship, bequeathing his estate to her and her unborn child. Ichabod deduces that all the victims are either beneficiaries or witnesses to the new will, and assumes that the Hessian's master is Baltus, Van Garret's next of kin who would otherwise have inherited the estate. Ichabod finds a chalked pentagram under his bed, which he believes symbolizes the evil eye.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Andrew Kevin Walker
- Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki
- Edited by: Chris Lebenzon, Joel Negron
- Music: Danny Elfman
- Production design: Rick Heinrichs
- Produced by: Scott Rudin, Adam Schroeder
Cast
- Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane
- Christina Ricci as Katrina Van Tassel
- Miranda Richardson as Lady Mary Van Tassel / Crone Witch
- Michael Gambon as Baltus Van Tassel
- Casper Van Dien as Brom Van Brunt
- Jeffrey Jones as Reverend Steenwyck
- Richard Griffiths as Bürgermeister Phillipse
- Ian McDiarmid as Dr. Lancaster
- Michael Gough as Notary Hardenbrook
- Christopher Walken as Hessian Horseman
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Paramount Pictures, Mandalay Pictures, American Zoetrope, Karol Film Productions
- Budget: $100,000,000
- Box office: $206,071,526
- Themes: small town, halloween, police detective, gothic, new york state, skeptic, autumn, 19th century, headless horseman
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