Sweeney Todd turns out to be a surprisingly popular icon in Victorian popular fiction. Starting out life as the villain for a 1846 Victorian penny dreadful serial named The String of Pearls, the character was later elaborated on through several film adaptations, a play made in 1973 by Christopher Bond and then a Tony-award winning musical in 1979. The story of a crazed barber killing his customers and the corpses later being turned into pies by his partner/lover was a story that truly stuck out to director Tim Burton when he saw the play when he was still a student in 1980. In 2006, Burton was given the chance to direct a film version of the story after the previous choice, Sam Mendes, left to make other films. With careful consultation from composer, Stephen Sondheim and a cast filled with recognisable yet talented people, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was made. Returning to London after years stuck in prison due to a false charge, a barber named Benjamin Barker, now going by the name of Sweeney Todd (played by Johnny Depp) comes home to find that his wife has died and his now teenage daughter has been taken by Judge Turpin (played by Alan Rickman), the man who sent him away in hopes of marrying his wife and now his daughter as well. Fuelled by hate and equipped with his old razors, Todd and pie maker Mrs Lovett (played by Helena Bonham Carter) plan to kill off people who come for a shave and use them for her pies, all the while waiting for the arrival of the Judge so he can have his revenge. Being an adaptation of the musical instead of the original play, while turning a musical into a film is often pretty tricky as the mediums have such differences, this film does a fairly good job at turning it into a cinematic film. With great acting, memorable music, effective visuals, and an impressive amount of gore, this gothic tale turned into a pretty good movie.

The story for the titular character has been updated and expanded upon several times throughout his existence, starting off as a pure evil figure into one that is more tragic, giving him a clearly constructed backstory to establish his fall into insanity. The tale is packed with gothic themes and emotions and the narrative’s simplicity allows the emotions to take over and make every character have a clear purpose and drive, which easily gets the audience engaged. Burton’s love of anything dark yet also creative makes him the perfect choice for this adaptation; his dedication to making the movie fully encapsulate its harsh and sullen atmosphere, while also mixing the genres of slasher and musical very effectively. It never feels like a stage play with a cinematic edge, it evolves into the new medium though its cinematic shots, angles, and effects, but also through its rapid pacing and production design. Since the film is strong on emotions, it doesn’t leave a ton of detail and fleshed out information for the story to fill in. The bare essentials are given, and it’s all the film requires yet some moments going further into the film’s themes and ideas could’ve made the film even more impactful. While the story between Todd, Mrs Lovett and the Judge is given a good amount of screen time, the side story between the young lovers of Anthony and Todd’s daughter Johanna (played by Jamie Campbell Bower and Jayne Wisener) is not given enough time to make any of it feel memorable. While it would have slowed the film’s pace down and removed focus from Todd, it feels like the only section of the film where the emotions feel almost fairy-tale like with how little time is given to their relationship.

The cast for the film is full of famous names that would not normally been choices for a musical adaptation, yet the strengths of the musical relies in how it doesn’t follow a lot of the traditional musical rules. The songs are utilised more for expressing the character’s emotional pains and wants rather than furthering the story; since the narrative is laid out in a clear enough way, the songs don’t need to fill in a lot of the gaps, instead fill in the character’s feelings and motivations. This means the actors don’t need the qualities of Broadway performers and do very impressive jobs as normal actors. Johnny Depp provides a really good version of Sweeny Todd; giving off a disposition and air that makes it feel like he is a walking corpse only bent on revenge. The look is iconic, his actions are pretty graphic yet are given valid explanation, and while his singing voice is not perfect, what he lacks in strength he makes up for in control and character. His acting within every sung word gives off the correct emotion it needs too, masking whatever faults his voice has and makes it sound pretty cool. People like Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, and Sacha Baron Cohen fully commit to the world the film inhabits and have fun in their performances, which shows strengths to Burton’s directing, giving them clear roles and identities and allowing them to do so much from pretty basic beginnings. The only one who doesn’t feel like that extra step is taken is Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs Lovett. While she acts and sings fairly well and its not a bad performance by any means, there is a strong lack of personality and creative choreography in any of her scenes. While everyone else feels so alive when they sing and give off such unique movements and expressions, her’s are very basic and do not feel that creative.

The visuals for the film really do a good job engrossing the audience in the dark gothic atmosphere without being grey and dull looking. While the environment is very colourless and features grey and blue more than anything, it helps in not only giving the area a lifeless defeated atmosphere but also helps out wonderfully with the contrast later on. The film’s inclusion of lamp-light oranges and the smeared overglow glossy red, gives any night-time scenes the feeling of being in a stained stone oven, capturing a more claustrophobic uncomfortable light instead of a typical warm inviting light. Also, the usage of fake blood that feels very reminiscent to hammer horror pictures of the past, magnifies the presence of the blood, feeling less realistic but being far more memorable and show-offy. Any scene involving gore is usually super over-the-top and becomes a fountain of red anytime a cut is made. The gore for the movie is pretty brutal with plenty of deaths throughout and with nothing holding the graphic nature back. The darker atmosphere and prominently moody lighting leave any scene with blood in it easily staying in people’s memory. The music for the film is very catchy, has nice melodies, none feel too similar to the other, certain songs are called back to later in the film for dramatic purposes, and they never feel distracting throughout the entirety of the picture. The mixture of tones for the film allow the songs to also be in a middle ground, where they can be dramatic and sometimes horrifying yet feature enough of a crazed flair that they can easily come across as ironic or even funny.

Sweeney Todd can offer up a unique twist for musical lovers as well as gothic story lovers in a movie with nicely meddled elements of both. With a concept that has been adapted from so many different versions throughout the years, the end results turned out something that felt like its own thing while still incorporating many good elements of several other versions. It has a simplistic yet incredibly memorable concept that make the story a bit more rounded, the characters aren’t given much complexities, but are acted very well, the music isn’t traditional but leaves people memorising them, and the visuals can come across as generic, yet become anything but the moment the razors come out. It is not a complex work of film that really dissects the themes that it brings up, but for a palette taster with a ton of other enjoyable elements to check out, this one will leave you wanting more. Get ready to never trust a shave again, see for yourself if the story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is something that you’d like to know more about.