Horror Movie Review #20: Sweeny Todd

SWEENY TODD (TV MOVIE)
Directed By: Dave Moore
Release Date: 3 January 2006 (UK)
Running Time: 90 minutes
Language: English
Horror Type: Murderous Barbers
Sex? - Some
Gore? - Oh hell yeah!

Once upon a time, in a London that's plagued by gaolers, consumption, and where real men wear wigs, there lived a barber slash surgeon slash abortionist slash serial killer. It's my type of London, and he's my ultimate Jack of Trades, not only because of his peculiar versatility, but because the Talented Mr Todd also holds the distinction of being the quietest barber in London. It's his disposition that warms people up to him, and it perfectly camouflages the unlikely murderer that is Mr Sweeny Todd.

He's a barber. And he has full access to his customer's throat by default most especially when he's applying shaving cream on them. And when your some psychopath with a terrible bloodlust, you take advantage of that vulnerability to satisfy your killing urge. Mr Todd, the quietest barber in London, does so with singleness of purpose, and uses his razor to cause a great gushing incision across his customer's throat.

He creates a partnership with the pie maker next door to whom he discloses his killing whim. She benefits from her complicity (silence); she is guaranteed to never run out of meat with which to add to her pies. He sends her the dismembered flesh of his victims. She sends him customers by word of mouth.

What makes it all the more genuinely unnerving is that its all so simple and yet so closer to life. There have been countless times in which we made ourselves vulnerable to such lethal opportunities, but we are so estranged from the possibility of a killer barber. This movie, however far removed from the makings of a lucrative production, efficiently unmasks the fascinating machinations of one very singular serial killer, and leaves us coughing for more even after the event of his suicide.


Momel's Rating: 4/5