sweeney todd the demon barber of fleet street Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Villains We Love: Sweeney Todd
Filed under: Horror », Music & Musicals », Fandom », Johnny Depp », Scenes We Love »
If you pressed me to pick my favorite slasher, I would pick the one who wears a cravat and sponsors a recycling program. He may not be as physically terrorizing as Jason, Freddy, or Michael Myers, but Sweeney is just as ruthless. Once he decides that revenge is best served in a hot crust, no one is safe from his blade. Perhaps he's not as creative with his kills as Jason or Freddy is, but he's a lot more poetic. Few slashers are both a serial killer and a Byronic hero, and few horror movies feature a hero who moans over his lost daughter as he opens another jugular.
The blend of the romantic and the horrific is what makes Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street such a delicious story. At its twisted center, the story is all about love. Sweeney is motivated by the loss of his wife and child, Mrs. Lovett assists him because she's always loved him, Judge Turpin is twisted by love and lust for Johanna, and the tender romance of Johanna and Anthony helps bring it all to an even bloodier denouement.
Combine its Gothic romance with its cheery tunes (cannibalism, rape, child abuse, alcoholism, and insanity have never been so catchy!) and historical / social commentary, and you have a pretty demented little tale. Am I the only one who watches it, and hopes every single time that once Sweeney dispatches Judge Turpin to his gravy, he and Mrs. Lovett will flee London, make a new life together and enjoy lifelong success running a meat pie shop by the sea? I know he and Mrs. Lovett deserved their ugly ends, but Sweeney's seems especially bitter. He may have put a lot of innocent men into pies, but did he deserve such a personal twist of the razor? I think even the Greek playwrights would find that one cold.
'Cloverfield', 'Enchanted', 'Sweeney Todd' Win Saturn Awards
Filed under: Action », Horror », Sci-Fi & Fantasy », Thrillers », Awards »
Did you know the Saturn Awards were last night? I sure didn't! You'll remember the Saturn Awards as where William Shatner did his famous rendition of "Rocketman" back in 1978. The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films has given them out to the best in genre cinema for 34 years now, and this year's picks are ... kind of strange.The prize for Best Fantasy Film went to Enchanted, which I think is silly in a category that also included Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Stardust, but okay. Then Sweeney Todd took Best Horror Film, which seems to me like a way to avoid giving an award to an actual horror film, like fellow competitors 30 Days of Night, 1408 and The Mist. I guess I can see why Sweeney Todd would be classified as "horror" -- a lot of throats get slit, after all -- but it's a stretch. Then the kicker: Cloverfield wins Best Science-Fiction Film, beating out, among others, Sunshine. The problem is that not only is Cloverfield not a science-fiction film, it's in some ways the opposite of a science-fiction film. Science-fiction entails some sort of larger cosmic context for the fantastic goings-on, which is precisely what Cloverfield refuses to provide. It's a monster movie in its purest form -- horror, not sci-fi.
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