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With spooky season coming, Tara, Aaron, & Andrew take a trip to Ye Olde England to give their Sweeney Todd Reaction, Recap, Commentary, Analysis, Breakdown, Ending Explained, Theories, & Spoiler Review!
Tim Burton’s gothic musical masterpiece Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) brings Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway classic to the big screen with haunting style and unforgettable performances. The film stars Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Scissorhands) as Benjamin Barker / Sweeney Todd, a vengeful barber who returns to London to exact revenge after years of wrongful imprisonment. Helena Bonham Carter (Harry Potter, Fight Club) co-stars as Mrs. Lovett, his scheming accomplice who turns victims into her infamous meat pies. Alan Rickman (Die Hard, Harry Potter) delivers chilling authority as Judge Turpin, with Timothy Spall (Harry Potter, Secrets & Lies) as the slimy Beadle Bamford, Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Les Misérables) as flamboyant rival barber Pirelli, and Jayne Wisener as Johanna, Todd’s daughter.
With Tim Burton’s signature gothic visuals, Danny Elfman’s atmospheric score, and Sondheim’s legendary songs like “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd,” “A Little Priest,” and “Johanna”, the film has become a cult classic. Key moments such as Sweeney’s first chair-side kill, the shocking reveal of Lucy’s fate, and the grisly finale with Mrs. Lovett cement the film as one of Burton’s darkest and most operatic achievements.
Hosts Tara Erickson, Aaron Alexander, and Andrew Gordon dive into the film’s chilling themes of vengeance, love, and tragedy while breaking down its iconic performances, songs, and unforgettable gothic imagery.
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If you want to see another musical with a young Johnny Depp, you should check out Crybaby.
“Watch this one shine. How he smiles in the light…”
-Sweeney Todd
“At last… my arm is complete again.”
P.S …this and Chicago.
This was awesome!! What a great movie and fun reaction! Songs were so beautifully done and the deaths are BRUTAL. lol Love what Tara and co said at the end about JD. As someone who watched the full trial, I agree 1000%. Subscribed and can't wait to watch more reactions! Might check out Spinal Tap with Aaron or The Room with Tara.
One of my favourite movies of all time and one of the best musicals. Love u got to watch it, it's flawless
16:26 funny you mention Amanda Seyfried and then Les Mis, since Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter play a couple in that movie.
They really pair up a lot of the same actors across these musical movies 😅
Reason Danny Elfman doesn't do the music is because it's a Sondheim musical and therefor the score was also done by him in the film.
Cry Baby!! THE JOHNNY DEPP MUSICAL of Cry Baby Walker. If you haven’t it’s a must.
Cast Battle:
Jack Sparrow and Bellatrix Lestrange VS Severus Snape and Peter Pettigrew
I love that you watched this movie, it's in my top 3 of all time!
Only musical I own. Still sing portions of this soundtrack routinely
This is probably my favorite musical. The music goes so hard and the lyrics are all so clever. It has such a distinct aesthetic. The few seconds of music when he slices his love's throat has got to be the most powerful score moment of all time. You can't really appreciate until rewatch but the drama somehow encapsulates the tragedy and horror of a man blindly killing the woman he's been obsessed with avenging. The music has this grandiose finality to it like that's the real end of his journey and he was ultimately the villain of his own happiness. It's like he's been falling off a cliff this whole movie and that's the moment he crashed onto the rocks below. There's a lot of dramatic score moments but that goes the hardest.
The truth is had he not been so fixated on killing, he could have been reunited with his wife and daughter who were literally standing in front of him.
"I know this is supposed to be sweet" – not really. Antony seems gentle enough so it isn't alarming but I think it's supposed to reflect the desperation of the times. Johanna is so alone- the ward of a violent predator and his skeezy side kick and cut off from her family – that even a complete stranger singing outside her window about "stealing" her is a glimmer of hope. We understand that he only wants to rescue her because she's a sad-looking beautiful blonde… and we still don't care. Her situation is too dire. This musical portrays a bitter world full of selfish people who do nothing but metaphorically consume, out of greed or out of desperation. It would feel hypocritical to choose a "hero" that had pure, selfless moral virtue. He's just as possessive and self-interested as everyone else, he's just morally superior by not being rage-fueled or homicidal. To me, the sweet tone and sinister lyrics have always seemed intentionally ironic because in such a cynical musical, that's about as white as knights come. And in the end, Johanna, the "prop" female character reveals she has a far better understanding of the word than him. He's a naive romantic but she knows exactly the situation she's getting into.
Interestingly, Mrs. Lovett has the inverse contrast in her parts of "Not While I'm Around." The lyrics are sweet but the tone is sinister because we know purity in this world will only be met with death. Ultimately, we know he must morally succumb or be consumed (literally and figuratively).
"How does that not happen all the time?" in regards to the finger. Honestly, it probably does. The musical portrays London as a scummy place where everyone is looking out for themselves. Everyone is metaphorically consuming, due to greed or desperation. As they said in A Little Priest "what are those crunching noises pervading the air? It's man devouring man my dear so who are we to deny it in here?" Judge Turpin is not a singular blight in the power structure and Todd/Lovett are not a unique evil of the working class. It's all a cesspool of corruption, violence, greed, and desperation. The customers are most likely willfully ignorant because their bellies are full. Toby, the most innocent figure we have who encounters the meat pies, is the only one to call attention to it (directing-wise) because he is the one who shows horror towards it.
I highly doubt anyone got a happy ending off screen. The point of this musical is that they don't exist, anything pure or innocent or beautiful gets gobbled up. I love dark, amoral musicals.
Man I have loved this since the day it came out, even loved the stage play aswel with Angela Lansbury as Mrs Lovett Wow! Amazing !!
I'd love to see your views on Rent if we are doing musicals 🥰
fun fact the Sweeny Todd story is also based on a penny dreadful, they were short stories you used to be able to by and often had scary stories in them, hence the names. in that story though he killed a sailor who was on his way to get deliver a pearl necklace to a widow who'd lost her husband on the last voyage. wanting to look nice he stopped for a shave and explained the situation. the barber was just an awful man and saw an opportunity to get rich and well… yea the rest of the story is about him tying to get away with it. however he was most defiantly not sympathised with.
you can read it online for free
An underrated masterpiece 👌
Repo, The Genetic Opera next!!!
I am old school lover of Sondheim. I prefer the musical original (Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury) and the revival.
Here the acting is good, but i wish the voices were as strong as on the stage, tho' i know movies are quieter and can use no theatre trained voices. I also know that stars get the musical into the movie theater (i.e. Madonna as Evita- Ugh.). Still.
There was a 'The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me' video game that came out in 2022 that was based on HH Holmes & a mix of slasher films. Great game!
This n the broadway version r great 😊
17:32 I’m so glad Aaron said this because legitimately I’ve always thought that song was really creepy.
I’ve always said when this movie come out JD be a perfect in Frankenstein
The way that they do not skimp on the gore in this is actually pretty impressive. Getting a full R rated musical of Sweeney Todd with full blood and everything. I feel like that almost wouldn’t get made today.
1:03:20 I like that you almost get a sense that Sweeney knew he was there so he kind of present his neck to do it because he kind of wants to die. But then there’s a look of surprise on his face which kinda undercuts that.
So interesting to think Anthony Is Vecna from stranger things. The RANGE
Highly recommend Repo! The genetic opera. It’s incredible.
If you want a darker, horror-ish musical, i would recommend 'Repo! The Genetic Opera' is an under-apprietiated classic with Paul Sorvino, Paris Hilton and Alexa Vega. Great reaction and cant wait to watch more
39:11 in a sense she keeps everyone grounded… if you know what I mean.. lol
magnificently narcissistic m*r*nic reactions by idiots
Love this movie and the songs ❤❤❤
My favorite musical. 🙏
Fun fact, this was the first time really any of the main leads had sung in anything. This is the first time Johnny Depp had professionally sang in something, same with Alan Rickman and Helena Bonham Carter and it’s kind of crazy because they all do a great job, you can’t even tell.
PUTTING THIS ON YALL’S RADAR:
They actually DID make Stranger Things a musical! Look into it, it’s SUPER new and recently released on Broadway here in NYC!!!
Fun Fact- At the beginning of the process making this film, Johnny Depp’s daughter got a blood infection and almost died. Johnny, who was kinda nervous to sing and do a musical anyway, tried to quit and Tim Burton told him to go be with his daughter but he wasn’t getting out of it that easy.
Luckily his daughter pulled through, but there’s a REAL darkness in this role that he brought to life from ACTUALLY almost losing his daughter!
Nightmare before Christmas?
Hes not only in stranger things he's also in twilight
Fun fact, the character of Sweeney Todd the demon barber of Fleet Street is originally from an old penny-dreadful from the 1840s nearly 180 years ago.
6:18 yesss that’s my boyyyy…. when i saw him on stranger things i was like “ANTHONYYY!?!?? WHERE’S YO GIRL JO?!?”
Sweeney Todd has zero to do with HH Holmes, who did not cut peoples throats or make pies out of them and was American. Sweeney Todd is based on an actual legend from London. No one can really say if it was true or not.
The stage musical this is based on came out in 1979 and it was one of the best musicals ever written for the stage. There’s a lot more music than in the movie.
They should release a pro shot of the recent Broadway revival starring Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford and Gaten Matarazzo and put it on and put it in in theaters like they did with Hamilton.
Sweeney Todd changed my life when I first became aware of it in 1980 and it and is the reason that I love life theater so much.
I do you think they did a decent job with the movie version, though the singing is not great. It’s passable though, for “movie singing” versus stage singing.
When Rickman bellows BEN BARKAH!!
46:53 for those who are looking for the song