[jekylljuice]

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Wow. Johnny Depp was positively terrifying in this film, about as far removed from the likes of Edward Scissorhands and Edward D. Wood Jr as you can get...still, given the choice I think I'd be more inclined to be trapped in a confined space with Mr. Todd than I would Mr. Depp's incarnation of Willy Wonka in Tim Burton's previous film (*shudder*). Really, congrats to Johnny. He had that glacial, utterly impassive expression he wore all throughout nailed down to a tee.

I enjoyed this film very much, despite my being of somewhat squeamish stock. An awful lot of red liquid does go flying throughout (I'll admit to feeling slightly shocked when they actually showed the first of the throat-slittings - I'd kept my eyes to the screen since I was so confident they would cut away at the critical moment), though the blood-letting is of an obviously very stylised nature, and I found that I could more-or-less handle it (never quite got over some of the pitiful gurgling noises which Mr. Todd's victims had a tendency to make, though). The dark, murky streets of Victorian London were beautifully realised, and the musical numbers were very neatly executed. My only real qualms were a couple of plot points which struck me as being somewhat underdeveloped and another which was left dangling, with no real sense of closure at the very end. Otherwise, a fine macabre delicacy, neither sweet nor savoury, but highly entertaining.