| Subject: New BBC horror film |
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cinephilia
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Date Posted: 08:30:07 01/04/06 Wed
LONDON: Ray Winstone brings Sweeney Todd, the mythical demon barber of Fleet Street made famous in Stephen Sondheim's 1979 Broadway musical, vividly and scarily to life in a memorable new BBC horror film.
Grim and bloody, the drama makes harrowing viewing as it tells of a seriously demented individual who lives as a respected, soft-spoken and expert barber-surgeon in 18th century London while busily murdering his customers with his straight razor.
Not only that, but he hacks the bodies to pieces and disposes of the larger parts in a church crypt that abuts his shop. The smaller pieces, he gives to his neighbour, Mrs Lovett, to bake in her well-regarded and succulent pies.
Writer Joshua St Johnston has created a believable monster from scraps of fiction about Sweeney Todd that date back to 19th century periodicals. Winstone, who has played some colourful villains in his time, portrays a schizophrenic character whose shy and polite respectability masks the pitiless psychopath that lies within.
Todd's murderous tendencies are unleashed when a cruelly vindictive guard (Anthony O'Donnell) from Newgate Gaol sits in his barber's chair and boasts about his ill treatment of the prisoners. The gaoler's boasts are ill chosen as Todd spent 20 years wrongfully within Newgate's hideous walls, and all the hatred emerges in one slash of his razor.
When Todd falls in love with the attractive but slatternly Mrs. Lovett (Essie Davis), whom he sees being beaten by her husband, it's not long before the bully also meets a bloody death.
Unknowing, Mrs. Lovett responds to Todd's apparent kindness by gifting him with pies. An attempt at seduction, however, reveals the barber as impotent, and she takes a series of lovers who mysteriously turn out to be one-night stands.
It's no coincidence that they have all gone to see Sweeney Todd for a haircut and shave, and Mrs. Lovett is never short of fresh meat for her pies. Out of the blue, Todd's long-lost father (David Bradley) shows up and, having spied upon his son for a few days, unwisely decides on blackmail.
The new police force, known as the Bow Street Runners, also become interested in the disappearances, with young runner Matthew Payne (Tom Hardy) and magistrate Sir John Fielding (David Warner) getting dangerously close to the barber's blade.
Director David Moore and cinematographer Ulf Brantas get the most out of designer Michael Pickwoad's claustrophobic sets that rarely leave the barbershop except to visit the bakery and the crypt.
Davis, Hardy, Bradley and Warner do exceptional work to match that of Winstone, who gets behind the eyes of a madman to reveal hauntingly how he might have become that way.
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