VANITY FAIR PARLE DE SLEEPY HOLLOW :

"Who better to film Washington Irving's famous tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman than Tim Burton, whose Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and Mars Attacks! marked him as a master of gothic dark comedy? Wrapping up Sleepy Hollow, Burton and his cast--Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Mrianda Richardson, Michael Gambon, and Casper Van Dien--give photographer Mary Ellen Mark and otherworldly take on "The first American horror story". Tim Burton's mind is a spidery attic, cluttered with 50s-creepshow influences, gothic organ music, and howling-wind sound effects.
So it seems plausible that his forthcoming film adaptation of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,"
due later this year, was a long-aborning pet project. Washington Irving's famous short story
about Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman, published in 1820, was, Burton says, "the
first American horror story"-and, in it's prevailing lightheartedness, an antecedent to just
about everything Burton has done, from the terrifying-but-uproarious "Large Marge" vignette
in Pee-wee's Big Adventure to the more fully realized horror-comedies Beetlejuice, Edward
Scissorhands, and Mars Attacks!
For the Ichabod Crane part, Burton cast Johnny Depp, who is fast shaping up to be the DeNiro
to Burton's Scorsese, having already played the title roles of the director's Edward
Scissorhands and Ed Wood. Katrina, the farmer's daughter and object of Ichabod's affections,
is played by Christina Ricci, the porcelain-complexioned Goth Girl of contemporary filmdom,
who only seems to have been in Tim Burton movies before. "She's got a good silent-movie
quality," Burton says. "She looks right in winter in England."
Though Burton considered shooting Sleepy Hollow in its real-life setting of North Tarrytown,
New York, he ultimately found damp, chilly England more conducive to what he had in mind.
This same rationale was applied to the assembly of his supporting cast, which includes a
wonderful assortment of misshapen British character actors--Michael Gambon (The Singing
Detective), Richard Griffiths (Withnail and I), and Ian McDiarmid (the Star Wars movies)--the
English beauty Miranda Richardson, and Christopher Walken as a mysterious soldier."

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY PARLE DE SLEEPY HOLLOW :

"Tim Burton certainly isn't afraid to let his freak flag fly. Over the past 15 years, the director's given us a Ritalin-starved man-child named Pee-wee, a pasty-faced naif with colossal scissors for hands, and a hack filmmaker with a taste for high heels and angora. Now Burton and three-time on-camera alter ego Johnny Depp (as well as freshly minted Golden Globe nominee Christina Ricci) are in London tackling yet another twisted tale. In Sleepy Hollow (Due this summer), Depp plays Ichabod Crane-Washington Irving's easily spooked hero who goes head-to-neck with the bloodthirsty Headless Horseman. All of which has the star seeing red. Says Depp, looking down at his blood-spattered shirt, 'Tim, what kind of sick movie is this?!?'"