"Sleepy Hollow" Film Review

A constable named Ichabod Crane is sent to a Dutch community in the state of New York called Sleepy Hollow to investigate the deaths of a plethora of people found with their heads cut off. The locals all say that the murders have been committed by the legendary Headless Horseman. Ichabod starts hunting around for clues, along the way he meets Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter of the town’s richest man, and the young son of one of the victims, young Masbath.

He ultimately realizes it was Katrina’s step mother who summoned the Headless Horseman. The movie ends with Karina and Masbath coming to live with Ichabod.

Lighting is a big element in Sleepy Hollow.

One example is when Ichabod first arrives, you see this gloomy town and then it jumps cut to a huge white church which is symbolism because you can see how important religion is to them. Another example is at the end of the movie when the evil is finally gone from the town, and you can see the town brightening.

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It shows that purity or good (bright) wins over evil or bad (dark).

Music also is an element in Sleepy Hollow. The music in the forest scene, it creates the perfect mood for the dark/scary woods. It also manages to be creepy and humorous at the same time, so you don’t know whether to be frightened or laugh at the scene.

The last element in the film is symbolism of the color white/black which is predominant in Sleepy Hollow. An example of this is the bright white color of Katrina in the movie which shows two things. The first is that she is a pure and good character, who opposes evil in Sleepy Hollow. This means the audience should feel the gloom and the darkness in the scene, but also see the brightness of Katrina and realize she is the loner type like Ichabod. The second thing the brightness of Katrina does is to show Ichabod's feelings towards her. She is shown in white, is pure, and lovely in his eyes. After Ichabod realizes Katrina is there to help him because no one else would, he states, “I am now twice the man. It is your white magic.” There are film elements in this movie, lighting, music and symbolism of black/white color and I have shown you these elements that are in this movie. In the end, Tim Burton made over $30,000,000 in Sleepy Hollow’s opening weekend which gave Burton a bona fide hit on his hands.