Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)

The best horror film of 2007 is a musical about an unkempt barber who gives nasty-close shaves and an unkempt woman who bakes meaty pies with lots of heart (and other body parts), plying their trades in an unkempt 19th century London  gorging happily on its Industrial Age.

And, yes, there is blood. Hammer horror bright, fire-engine red, hissing through the air like steam from a boiling teapot, or pooling on the floorboards like piss from a mangy dog. Mingling with the hiss and the puddles are songs; vindictive and forlorn, and sung deeply from the throat of damnation, crying out for vengeance through the unkempt, morose alleyways and lawless byways of Fleet Street, home to the courts, the barristers, and Judge Turpin.

Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) is unkempt in body and soul. He covets Benjamin Barker's wife. The lecherous cur has Barker imprisoned on false charges, rapes his wife, steals his infant daughter, and becomes the object of vengeance that consumes Barker, now calling himself Sweeney Todd, who returns fifteen years later to his decrepit flat above Mrs. Lovett's (Helena Bonham Carter) failing pie shop. Mrs. Lovett covets Sweeney--always has--even as Sweeney covets his glistening silver set of  straight razors. All these Grand Guignol ingredients whip together in Tim Burton's mighty tasty version of this Gothic and gory folie à deux, which leaves out any whimsy to be found in the stage version. 

The Stephen Sondheim musical, in Burton's hands, becomes an unrelentingly dark tale of deliverance to sin for some, and the loss of innocence for others. This is Saucy Jack's London; an oily smudge from endless smokestacks coats everything, and daylight barely filters through the grime. The only bright spots to appear in this otherwise gloomy environment are the splotches of red spraying from severed necks, and there are lots of them--both severed necks and splotches.

Promptly taking care of Signor Pirelli's blackmail attempt, the necessity for getting rid of the foppish con man's ample frame leads to a mutually satisfying business agreement between Todd and Mrs. Lovett, and sets both on their merry way to hell in the bargain.

With a shock of white in his hair to show how much his soul has lost, Johnny Depp's Sweeney Todd is the perfect instrument for wielding death. In John Logan's screenplay and Christopher Bond's musical adaptation, not a hint of remorse nor glint of redemption show in Todd's ashen face or in his words as bodies follow one another down the chute to the oven room below.

Burton dotes on a long, disquieting interlude of song and blood with Sweeney slashing necks and slack bodies dropping effortlessly. The absurd blood-letting lulls you into a comforting sense of surrealism until the jarring thwacks of his victims, with limbs akimbo and brains splattered, hit the hard cellar floor with a smack.

Burton skillfully uses the advantages of camera and angle here, increasing the horror of the deed by bringing us closer to it than the stage play ever could; we see the terror-filled expressions of disbelief on his victims' faces as the razor slices deeply through skin and artery, and we cringe as their bodies are unceremoniously dispatched. It is a moment of sublime terror rarely captured in a horror film, let alone any musical I know of, so let this be a nightmare warning to those of you prone to such things.

While Sweeney Todd sinks deeper into the abyss, young Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower with a bit of Goth about him), happens upon Johanna--Todd's daughter, now the beautiful prisoner of Judge Turpin--as she looks out her bedroom window. Hope and Todd arrived on the same ship into London, one filled with innocence and expectation, the other with experience and hatred. Parting ways as they disembarked, their paths meet up again as Hope runs afoul of Judge Turpin and his bully-boy, Beadle Bamford. More wicked than the beadle Mr. Bumford in Oliver Twist, Timothy Spall's repugnant, ratty Bamford, with his extendable and lethal walking stick, exudes all the grimy detritus around him with malicious glee. It's an unsavory performance to be savored.

But the machineries of young love and seething hatred will not be stopped. As Hope seeks to rescue Johanna from the clutches of Judge Turpin and Beadle Bamford, Todd's hatred consumes him, turning his singular revenge plans for Judge Turpin into a plurality. Aided by Mrs. Lovett, reaping the burgeoning profits from his modus operandi, the madness begins in earnest. Soon her pie shop is buzzing with eager patrons munching away on their fellow Londoners.

Toby, the street urchin formerly in Pirelli's abusive charge, unwittingly helps serve up the meat pies until a thumb winds up in a most unexpected place and he realizes what the huge meat grinder in the cellar is really used for. His dashed hope of finding a home with Mrs. Lovett is not the greatest tragedy in this story of loss and no redemption. More tragedy awaits as another unpleasant discovery is made and more blood is spilled.

Oh, yes, there will be blood. In the ending of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd, there will be much, much more.

Comments

[CG]

I can't believe I still haven't gotten around to seeing this one. Soon enough....Soon enough. My favorite Burton film is Sleepy Hollow, but this looks like it could give it a run for its money. Sounds incredible.

[IL]

Hey CG,

I love Sleepy Hollow! What a moody, quirky period piece. The imagery of the headless horseman emerging from the tree of death is outstanding.

I venture to say the image that Burton leaves you with in Sweeney Todd is also outstanding.

(PS. I recommend CG's blog at http://wineandwerewolves.blogspot.com/)

[B-Sol]

I think a lot of close-minded people are not giving this excellent movie a chance simply because of the music. And they're doing themselves a disservice.

[IL]

First, B-Sol, your review of Somebody Help Me is quite disheartening: I've got it sitting on my desk. After watching The Blood Shed, I cringe at the thought of another clunker session ahead of me.

Second, you're right about Sweeney. But the music is superb, as well as the narrative singing. Not great, but fits the whole dark vision quite well. I think many fans may think it too high-brow and avoid it (as one NY Times critic observed also).

The ending is gross yet beautiful, if that makes much sense. It's simply stunning. Bamford is incredible. Spall has got to win a supporting oscar; his performance is hard to describe, but the look, the actions, everything he does is spot on to the character. Worth watching if nothing else will bring you in to the movie. But luckily it does have more to satisfy many a horror fan. I hope many more fans check it out on DVD at least.