Sweeny Todd

What can 15 years' exile in the remote world of Australia turn an innocent English barber into? In 18th century London, he becomes a barber who cuts more throats than shaves.


Tim Burtin has turned this 19 century classic horror tale and 1979 Broadway musical depicting the dreadful world of Benjamin Barker, now Sweeney Todd, into a grand musical movie doped with his signature black-gray-silver picturesque. Some of the scenes actually resemble those in Corpse Bride.

It is truly a musical movie. More musical than Chicago, more so than Moulin Rouge! I would say over 80% of the scripts are embodied into the lyrics. The music can be as grand and as haunted as the story goes. Johnny Depp's singing plays out so well as a disparate husband and father who has lost his beloved wife and daughter, as well as a raged and merciless serial killer whose mind settles on nothing but revenge. Most of the killings serve nothing but simply releasing the rage resides within Todd. Burtin's beloved Helena Bonham Carter, in her signature witch-like persona, plays Mrs. Lovett who butchers the corpses and makes meat pies out of them. You will also see blood slashing from the victims' necks, furious red against the unsaturated black-gray-silver sets. Unlike Kill Bill, they come in a very realistic and subtle way.

This Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is "something close to a masterpiece," as A.O. Scott of New York Times puts it. It has won the 65th Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical) and Best Actor (Comedy or Musical). More awards are expected to come.