Sweeney Todd

New review from Movie Man Mike

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (B-). I probably give this movie higher marks than it deserves because I have a soft spot for Tim Burton and Johnny Depp and because I can appreciate the creativity in the lyrics of the musical numbers. But I had a hard time with the subject matter of this film and the graphic blood-letting. This is nothing short of a bad horror film. I mean really… a film about a barber who slits his clients’ throats and his landlady who cooks the body parts and then sells them as meat pies? And it’s a musical, no less! It doesn’t get much more gruesome than that. To be fair, the lyrics of the songs are clever, and Jamie Bower and Jayne Wisener each demonstrate their considerable singing voices. I had to wonder if I would have had a different reaction to this one if the blood had not been so graphically displayed and if there had been a more comedic tone to the killing, but the seriousness with which the whole thing was presented was really unsettling. If you must see this one, you might wait for the DVD.