Johnny Depp »

While other countries have headless riders roaming their empty places, I believe America can lay claim to The Headless Horseman. Born out of the mists of early America, the Horseman is a vengeful, anonymous Hessian who lost his head to a cannonball during the American Revolution. While it's popularly assumed he rides around looking for his head (and claiming any he comes across along the way), he actually has it resting on the pommel of his saddle. He doesn't need a new head. He's just sadistic.

As a kid, I firmly believed the Hessian was a real Sleepy Hollow legend, and finding out that he was just an invention by Washington Irving was a bitter disappointment. But now I find it impressive that a mere short story has worked itself so deeply into American folklore to become one of our most iconic horror characters. He's enigmatic and elegant in his hunting, traits that have survived Disney and Scooby-Doo without losing a shred of scariness. He really should be allowed to ride across movie screens more often. The wonderful thing about legend (even if it's not a real one that owes its existence purely to Irving) is that not one version is definitive, and any good writer or filmmaker can explore its murkier corners.

Though I love the Disney version with all my heart (like many kids, it's how I first encountered the story) I'm including a scene from Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow below the jump. I was disappointed by it when I first saw it in theaters (I still question the production designer's decision to just plunk the bridge in the middle of town), but its chilly atmosphere and Hammer stylings have grown on me. 18th Century America is one of my favorite topics for horror and history, and Burton painted a delicious nightmare version of it. If only he hadn't chosen to give the Hessian such a familiar face ....

If you pressed me to pick my favorite slasher, I would pick the one who wears a cravat and sponsors a recycling program. He may not be as physically terrorizing as Jason, Freddy, or Michael Myers, but Sweeney is just as ruthless. Once he decides that revenge is best served in a hot crust, no one is safe from his blade. Perhaps he's not as creative with his kills as Jason or Freddy is, but he's a lot more poetic. Few slashers are both a serial killer and a Byronic hero, and few horror movies feature a hero who moans over his lost daughter as he opens another jugular.

The blend of the romantic and the horrific is what makes Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street such a delicious story. At its twisted center, the story is all about love. Sweeney is motivated by the loss of his wife and child, Mrs. Lovett assists him because she's always loved him, Judge Turpin is twisted by love and lust for Johanna, and the tender romance of Johanna and Anthony helps bring it all to an even bloodier denouement.

Combine its Gothic romance with its cheery tunes (cannibalism, rape, child abuse, alcoholism, and insanity have never been so catchy!) and historical / social commentary, and you have a pretty demented little tale. Am I the only one who watches it, and hopes every single time that once Sweeney dispatches Judge Turpin to his gravy, he and Mrs. Lovett will flee London, make a new life together and enjoy lifelong success running a meat pie shop by the sea? I know he and Mrs. Lovett deserved their ugly ends, but Sweeney's seems especially bitter. He may have put a lot of innocent men into pies, but did he deserve such a personal twist of the razor? I think even the Greek playwrights would find that one cold.