Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street

Rating: 10/10 (22 December 2007)

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street is based upon the stage musical of the same name by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. The film is set in a very poor, dirty and dark London, England where a man named Benjamin Barker is introduced to us. We find out that he once was a happy barber married to a beautiful wife and had a new baby daughter till all this was taken away from him by a corrupt judge named Judge Turpin who sentences Benjamin to jail for 15 years, so he can end up having his wife. The 15 years have passed and Benjamin is out of prison and now goes under the name Sweeney Todd. He then meets a woman named Mrs. Lovett who lets him stay in her upstairs room above her pie shop. Sweeney has plans for revenge against the judge and the town, so he starts up his barbershop business again only to lure clients in and then slit their throats. To dispose of the bodies he decides along with Mrs. Lovett to make them into meat pies and sell them. Sure enough the pies become a hit. Meanwhile, Sweeney wants his daughter back from Judge Turpin and with a young man who is in love with her they plan a way to get her back and Sweeney also plans to take on his revenge for the Judge and continue to keep the bodies piling high. All this of course is set to musical numbers which are sung by the main characters of the cast. I first found out about the stage play musical of Sweeney Todd in my high school drama class when a teacher was telling us the general plot about it and from that moment on the story intrigued me and having always had a love of musicals it was definitely a musical I wanted to see. Thankfully, I have now seen Tim Burton's adaptation of the musical for the screen and I was very impressed. The film's set, costumes and makeup all give the film the bleak and depressing look it needs while really setting the mood for the film and playing as a backdrop to the story. The story itself is full of catchy and well done songs and it is also filled with morbid humour, lots of blood, dead bodies and one of the most interesting, original and wickedly entertaining plots to come along in awhile. Morbid and dark films have also appealed to me probably because my love of the different and the strange and as I mentioned earlier I have also enjoyed musicals, so all the ingredients (no pun intended) were here for me to completely enjoy this film and I did. The film was completely unpredictable from start to finish and I had no idea in which the direction of the story was going, but by the end of the film I was very satisfied with how the film ended and played out. The original, dark and plain out genius story was further enhanced by great acting, music and a lot of style and mood created by the backdrops and Tim Burton's wonderful eye of the macabre and the visually beautiful yet disturbing imagery. The film plays out like any classic musical you can think of, only it's rare you get one this violent or gruesome. However that just added to my enjoyment of the film because the darker and more wild this film got the more my interest grew and it kept my attention for the duration of it's length. If you like horror movies and happen to not mind musicals then this will definitely be a film for you. For musical lovers who do not like horror or the macabre then you best look elsewhere, but for people who appreciate both you will have a downright good time with this film. Definitely one of the year's best.