...kill, zombie, kill...

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                    "SLEEPY HOLLOW" - a movie by TIM BURTON
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based on the book: "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by John Irving

with: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci

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The United States  in the  year 1799... In New York the  young police  constable
Ichabod Crane is on the hunt for murders and killers. He invented  some technics
to find out in which way the victims were killed and so on... he wanted to check
out the corpses instead of tormenting some people who probably killed them.

And because  he was  a very talented  young man he got  a new job. In  the small
village called Sleepy Hollow were people killed in a very cruel way, someone has
cutted their  heads off and  stolen the heads, too... and because he  wasn't the
man who believes in ghosts and curses he accepted the job...

So he drove to this  village to find out who or what has killed  those people in
such a way and why. The village itself  was a dark and  cloudy place, surrounded
by dark and creepy woods  and he wasn't sure if it was a good idea to accept the
job as he arrived there.
He  found very  strange people and as it seems they all tried to hide  something
from him and on the hunt for the killer he must accept that there are a lot more
things  between earth and sky, esp. because the killer increased  his work after
Crane arrived in the village.

After short time  he found out that several people saying nothing  about all the
things going on or telling him  lies at all. Anyway, he knows very fast that the
killer is  a headless  horseman who  fightet  in the  independence  war  for the
English. He was a cruel one, being there at any massacre and killing people with
his big sword only by cutting their heads off...

But the  war ended  and he was hunted  by the police  and army and  finally they
found him and killed him with his own sword.

Nothing more to tell here... there are a lot of questions like why is he killing
the  people of this village, where his head is, what the  people in  the village
are hiding and so on... Don't want to tell more about it here...

Just for  the movie itself... to say it right at the  beginning: it's one of the
most  interesting  movies I saw  in the last years. Not only the  horrible story
makes it to a highlight, no, the whole  styling of the movie  does it. The whole
story is dark, there is anytime a big tension, and there are splatter effects en
masse... I never saw so much heads rollin' as in this movie!
Furthermore the historical atmosphere does his own, Crane with his self invented
instruments  to examine the corpses (reminds sometimes a bit to  Frankenstein or
so...), the strange  mayor, notary  and so on with their  old styling  and dusty
wigs (and ideas) in comparison  with the "modern" life  in  New York, the  whole
scenery at all...

And the heads rolling nice... no cuts, nothing, the blood runs in  rivers and is
spreading all around, esp. in the faces of the actors... furthermore some occult
stuff is included too, about witches, the devil itself, curses and so on, great!

Also the timing of the  movie is great... you always  can imagine when the rider
without  head is  coming along to cut some  more  heads  off, but you  never can
imagine in what way and who is the next one! Esp. the  point that it  is hard to
kill a zombie  at all, makes the movie much more interesting, because there is a
need to find out how the headless horseman can be banned into hell forever...

Untill then a lot of people must die, blood is spreading, bones are breaking and
last but not least a romance has to start... Great movie!

If you like dark  films, with an atmosphere that  is sucking you in, which gives
you a bad  feeling at all, but even spreads a kind of the darkest humor  you can
imagine, a movie with excellent actors (Johnny Depp as Crane is good for a laugh
again  and  again, because  he isn't long  the hard  constable he  thought about
himself at all... Christina Ricci as the daughter of van Tessel, the family that
will be killed one after another, which gives  the impression to be a  witch and
you didn't  know untill the end  what role  she's playing  at all) and finally a
movie who is able to bound  you on your cinema  chair untill it's  last seconds,
you have really to go to your next cinema and check it out!

But take care... the blood is running from the first minutes on...

...and don't loose your head... it doesn't look nice  as this movie  can show us
in a very realistic way.

                                                                moondog / .tSCc.
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