A Weird Take on an Old Tale.

• Author: DECARO, FRANK
• Position: Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" - Brief Article

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp reimagine a classic ghost story

Dressed in a black suit, black-and-white striped socks, and windshield-size black sunglasses--his hair a nest of gravity-defying tendrils--Tim Burton looks as if he had been sewn together by a very chic Dr. Frankenstein.

Burton does not mind jokes about his hair looking as if it had been combed with a Mixmaster. He's just glad he has a head. By the end of his new film, Sleepy Hollow, so few cast members do.

Based on Washington Irving's classic ghost story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the film is about Ichabod Crane, a poor schoolmaster, and his encounter one dark night with a headless horseman. The film reteams Burton for the third time with Johnny Depp, who plays Ichabod Crane. The character is now a constable instead of a teacher, but his jitteriness remains.

"It's a guy who's living in his head versus a guy with no head," Burton says. Christina Ricci plays Katrina Van Tassel, a beautiful young heiress and the object of Crane's affections.

With Sleepy Hollow, as with all his work, Burton is drawn most often to material in which a misfit triumphs. "I'm still a teenager in many ways," he admits. "That's where I'm at. I still can't get over feeling different or feeling...