BURTON'S `HOLLOW' A HAUNTINGLY EFFECTIVE VISION OF FEAR.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

The sheer, creepy beauty of Tim Burton's ``Sleepy Hollow'' more than compensates for a certain narrative thinness. Gothic and primeval, dark and cold yet rich in earthy detail, this horror movie vision lifts the genre to a new aesthetic high.

Much has been done to Washington Irving's venerable ``Legend of Sleepy Hollow'' this time around. All that's left from the original story is its 1790s setting in upstate New York, the headless ghost of a Hessian mercenary and a romantic triangle between prissy newcomer Ichabod Crane, the lovely young Katrina Van Tassel and local roughneck Brom Bones.

But that's about it. The film's script, credited to Andrew Kevin Walker (``Seven'') and polished without credit by ``Shakespeare in Love's'' Tom Stoppard, traffics in murder mystery and witchcraft, and the body count - make that the decapitated body count - is, as you'd expect from a Burton horror film, off the charts. There's a revenge theme, a burning windmill, a scrappy orphan, flashbacks to Ichabod's magical/horrible childhood (complete with iron maiden), a Tree of the Dead . . . the changes, like the names of demons, are legion, and prevent predictability of a certain kind. But the film does play out in a differently rote manner, as a puzzle of attrition common to many modern-day supernatural thrillers.

Helping move things along agreeably, though, is Johnny Depp's funny yet fundamentally dramatic portrayal of Ichabod. The character in this version is a police detective from New York City who arrives at the Hudson Valley township with a case full of painful-looking, early-American forensics equipment and a progressive's superior attitude. The former prove useless and the latter is tattered by encounters with the Headless Horseman that usually leave Ichabod in an unconscious swoon and his unlucky companions dismembered.

Why doesn't the vengeful wraith slash the life out of the fey city boy when he has numerous chances to do so? The devil knows that most of the residents of Sleepy Hollow wouldn't mind getting rid of the cowardly but nosey sleuth, who's unearthing an embarrassing conspiracy among the town fathers.

Another question: What does the luscious little Katrina (Christina Ricci in blond curls and pushup corsets), with her unconvincing innocence and sweet little book of spells, really have in mind for Crane? Or, for that matter, what is her mysterious stepmother (Miranda Richardson) actually up to?

A fine supporting cast of mostly older, mostly British gargoyles (Michael Gambon, Jeffrey Jones, Ian McDiarmid, Michael Gough, Christopher Lee, an unbilled Martin Landau) provide extra wigged-and-powdered glower. Christopher Walken is frighteningly effective as the headed version of the murderous Hessian, while Ray Park (``The Phantom Menace's'' Darth Maul) lends his strong and graceful acrobatic skill to the sword-swinging ghost.

But the real act here was performed by production designer Rick Heinrichs, costume designer Colleen Atwood and director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki (with a little reshoot help from the great Conrad Hall of ``American Beauty'' renown). They and the army of artisans who gave their concepts shape have created a complete universe, dank with fetid and fecund imagination.

From an old crone's rank and cluttered keep to a grime-dusted country morgue, from a haunted covered bridge to a stately home so hopelessly benighted that even a lively harvest celebration there can turn wakelike and dreary in an instant, ``Sleepy Hollow'' presents an ever-unfolding nightscape of dread. In many ways, it's the eccentric Burton's most straightforward, least-idiosyncratic genre exercise to date. But it may also be his most thoroughly realized expression of bone-chilling artistry.

The facts

The film: ``Sleepy Hollow'' (R; violence, sex).

The stars: Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien, Jeffrey Jones, Christopher Walken.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Tim Burton. Written by Andrew Kevin Walker and Kevin Yagher, based on Washington Irving's story ``The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.'' Produced by Scott Rudin and Adam Schroeder. Released by Paramount Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 40 minutes.

Playing: Citywide

Our rating: Three and one half stars.