The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

As directed by Tim Burton, who is famous for his 1993 film "Nightmare before Christmas" and 2005 film "Corpse Bride". Burton has hit the ball out of the park with his most recent film in 2007; Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

There are plenty of musical films, such as “Phantom of the Opera.” However, there are not very many with ‘gore’ as a theme. Sweeney Todd has a beautiful mix of music, singing, and a tasteful bit of blood. Although, before Sweeney Todd became well known by the hands of Tim Burton, it was original a musical play all its own, written by Christopher Bond which opened on Broadway in 1979. Bond made Todd a wrongfully imprisoned barber who returned to London after fifteen years in Australia to find that the judge responsible for his imprisonment raped his young wife and caused her suicide. There have been many performances of Sweeney Todd of the past years, directed by different people, and still it has always left its audience either in disgust and mortified, or completely entertained and in love. This musical made film shall forever rank up in the top lists of favorites for many, and mine as well. The cast was well done, staring Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd, and Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Burton’s wife, casted as Mrs. Lovett.

This Tony-Award winning, musical thriller made, on its opening weekend, $13,635,390 and making over two-million by the time it left theatres, just in the United States alone. Sweeney Todd as a unique look when on film, making the dark dreary streets of London seem like a ‘natural’ look in contrast to the escape to the beach that Todd and Mrs. Lovett take in the middle of the film. I would defiantly like to see Tim Burton do another take on a film similar to Sweeney Todd, using the same color style. However, until then, Sweeney Todd will be the best in my books.