Elkins Sleepy Hollow

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First off, let me just say that I enjoyed Burton’s rendition of the “Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” I feel that Washington Irving’s story really intrigued Burton, but was not enough for him. He wanted more and decided that he would, in a sense, “finish” it. So, while I enjoy Irving’s story for what it is, I feel that Burton’s version of Sleepy Hollow gives a more definite version of the story that raises no questions.

            Burton, I think, did more than simply create a horror story using Irving’s ideas and character names. I think that he not only created a more definitive version of the story for himself (as I have already said), but he also gave his audience a chance to live in a world where a headless Hessian goes around chopping peoples’ heads off. Burton is making use of Irving’s story to transport the audience to a more different world. Most movies do this kind of transportation, but, with Sleepy Hollow, it is more of an immersion. The audience has a real fear of the horseman and wants to follow Ichabod Crane in his quest to uncover the horseman’s secret (at least I did).

            Burton’s changes to Irving’s original story, I think, are like casualties in order to make Sleepy Hollow a horror story (instead of just a mystery). Crane is a detective from New York instead of a schoolteacher well ingrained in the culture of Sleepy Hollow and there is no question that the horseman exists in Burton’s film (whereas, in the story, it is probably Brom Van Brunt running Crane out of town). I liked these changes – it makes the characters feel fuller. Crane has a back- story and a real personality incomparable to the almost 2-D Crane in the Irving story, and the audience understands why all of the townspeople are terrified – the headless horseman is not merely just a scary story.

            Burton did well in both making Irving’s original story more “finished” and in turning the story into a horror movie. Changing some elements of Irving’s story, while brutal, were necessary. All-in-all, it seems that Washington Irving was writing a horror story all along.