GL84 A series of mysterious disappearances leads an American inspector in England to a charismatic barber and his helper who bake his victims into pies for the locals and try to stop their deadly game before it's too late.A somewhat decent effort of the story, which manages some good stuff here and there to make it interesting at least. The fact that there's several interesting and fairly entertaining mysteries built up that cross pollinate each other gives this one a pretty quick pace, with the mysterious murders leading him down one path, while the fact that he needs information from a previous victim to carry out his task which intersects with the vanished helpers from their shops, and overall this whole segment is quite good. There's even a grand finale that includes the Gothic trope of burning-down-the-location as well, as several of the preparation of the victim scenes get quite bloody, but this one does have some flaws. With several romantic subplots present, it doesn't offer up a lot of time on horror-specific subplots so this one doesn't really get up there in dealing out a body count, and overall this one has more of a period/drama feel rather than an out-and-out horror film so it misses a lot of chances to deliver some gruesome shocks. These lower it enough, but it's still pretty enjoyable.Rated R: Language, Graphic Violence and Brief Nudity.

bruce_sweeney This movie includes at least two exceptional actors in Ben Kingsley and Campbell Scott but together they cannot pull this period horror story beyond the doldrums of an unsurprising 18th century slash/horror flick. It's lame, slow, unsurprising and bland. It takes place in unjolly olde London of course, with Kingsley playing the nefarious Sweeney Todd and Campbell Scott, (son of George C. Scott) hot on his trail. Mr Todd is the famous barber that chops up people into hamburger after slitting their throats and selling said hamburg to a local meat pie shoppe.Some of the sets and street scenes seem solid and true to the period but the whole mess is overall (forgive me) ham-handed.

nufcdasbeast3 By all accounts this was close to the mark, having read a few books on the subject - this adaptation seemed authentic, ben kingsley's performance was delightful - with joanna lumley as his foil - WOW,campbell scott providing the young deterrent on sweeney's tail, for a TV adaptation this was stellar work !! costumes and sets in which ye olde London were brought to life, making fleet street seem like it was someplace we all knew - i mean you could just imagine jack the ripper popping in for a special royal shave (ha ha )and gore - all top notch, not at all bad for a sky home premier. I'm just about to watch the BBC Ray winstone version, look forward to anybody's thoughts !!

Royalcourtier I suppose I should not be too harsh, since this is an American TV movie, and neither a quality British product nor a feature film. But Sweeney Todd was ultimately a disappointment.On the plus side, the film was enthusiastic about the cannibalism and murder at the heart of the story. These subjects certainly weren't skirted around. Nor were the central characters made into heroes. There was never any doubt that the villainous Mr Todd and his butcher accomplice would pay for their crimes. There was only a faint echo of the modern idea that a criminal is the product of society, and that Todd's crimes were the product of a negligent military. But this was only hinted at.The major problem was lack of authenticity and a period feel. The Irish street scenes were physically right for early nineteenth century London, but the people were wrong. They were exaggerated characters, caricatures. Everything over over-acted, over directed, over-blown! Basically the director tried too hard to create a period feel.A good effort, but not good enough. A waste of acting talent