Just a Bit Late for Halloween

I watched Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow last night. I have to say, it was a bit creepy. I was okay with creepy once upon a time, even went out of my way to watch creepy/suspenseful movies. (Not usually gory, mind you, but plain old frightening was fine.) I'm one of those odd people who started watching horror movies at eight, who watched the Ring and wasn't fazed at all, who would watch (or read) whatever scary movie (or story) I could get my hands on in the dark alone late at night.

Anyway, back to Sleepy Hollow. It was a creepy movie. It was a very well done movie; but it was a creepy movie. I was joking when I refused to go back to my own empty house, but the fact remains that I don't handle these movies anywhere near as well as I used to. So while trying to give this movie what should be a glowing review, I'm fighting my own "yeah, it was good, why would I ever watch this again?" sort of thinking.

I think it would have been more frightening had it not been quite as surreal. There was so much in the way of imagery (use/lack of colors, appearance of certain characters, recurring significant moments, etc.) that it detracted from the reality of the movie enough to keep it from being quite as frightening as it could otherwise have been. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the imagery was certainly well done - there was one particular place where color was not drained that struck me immediately as perfect contrast and showed before the actual events did just what was going on in the area.

This has got to be one of the strangest movie reviews I've ever done. Anyway, I do recommend the movie, fairly highly recommend it, on the condition that you don't mind creepy.