Depp's Crane confuses 'dawn of a new millennium' with his time, around turn from 1799 into 1800. He is a New York inspector who is interested in introducing the forensics into the police practice, for him, the other methods were just too barbaric, so the annoyed judge gives him a job of dealing with decapitations in Sleepy Hollow, a small town upstate.
As Crane travels north, the film reveals its beauty, every single picture is a most wonderful gothic romantic dream, it makes the viewer expecting the villain and villain's unnatural powers. Sleepy Hollow turns to be a dark, evil place, as Crane walks, the shutters are slaming shut.
The murders continue, but the murderer, the Headless Horseman takes the heads of his victims, with him, back to Hell. Locals, Baltus Van Tassel (Michael Gambon), his daughter Katrina (Christina Ricci, an actress that cannot be more perfect for the role), her stepmother (Miranda Richardson), tend to look at it all with superstition and fear. Crane at one point examines the bodies, with the instruments of his own invention and to my mind come all the films by Terry Gilliam (like the scenes of the scientists in 12 Monkeys, or reptiles in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas). Johnny Depp is an amazing actor, able to get immersed into his characters. His co-operation with Tim Burton on several previous occasions (Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood) helps a lot. Depp creates a new Crane, one that is mortaly afraid of spiders, that still has problems looking at the blood even though his field of expertise is forensics, it is as if in the ending scenes Crane is rising from the satire to fight the classic horror character, the Headless Horseman.
The ending is traditional, but not without its charm, not without some wittiness from our main guy, his heroism and the end of the evil.
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