Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (film)/YMMV


 * Awesome Music: Not sure about the original musical, but the quiet interplay between Turpin and Todd in "Pretty Women" is incredibly good, especially as it builds to that crescendo at the very end.
 * Complete Monster: Judge Turpin is a corrupt HangingJudge in Victorian London and the man who begins Sweeney's start of darkness when, lusting after the then-younger barber's wife, Turpin has him imprisoned on a penal colony for decades of hard labor so he can seduce his wife. When she refuses, Turpin has her lured to his home under pretense of offering to free her husband- but rapes her instead, and steals her daughter as his ward. Turpin guards her jealously, having a younger sailor brutally beaten for looking at her and plans to marry her himself. When she refuses and tries to run away he sends her to an asylum where he knows she'll be mistreated. At another point, Turpin sentences a little boy to death by hanging...and then asks his sidekick, the Beadle Bamford, if the boy was even guilty of anything.
 * Creepy Awesome/Evil Is Sexy: Sweeney Todd
 * Draco in Leather Pants: It's a smarmily evil character played by Alan Rickman. Y'think? He's the most blatantly, unflinchingly, over-the-top evil character in the movie version... but hey. Alan Rickman. The Other-Other Wiki's fangirls have become so dedicated to this that they list Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett under this trope, but not their darling Woobie Turpin.
 * He Really Can Act (and sing!): Sacha Baron Cohen plays Pirelli.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: When the movie came out, it was noted that there were three Harry Potter alums in the film. The actor who played Anthony later played Grindelwald, so that's four. Not to mention that three of the four played Death Eaters, and all their HP characters were, at one point or another, bad guys. Dark Wizard reunion!
 * Ho Yay: In the movie, there seem to be overtones of this between Beadle Bamford and Judge Turpin. Mostly coming from Bamford's end, though it is kinda odd that he seems to spend so much time with the judge...
 * Love It or Hate It: Critics, general audiences, and Sondheim himself love the film, but some overserious fans of the stage show despise it. The main reason for the divide comes down to the performances, with fans of the film loving the actors in it, and haters feeling they're butchering Sondheim's score.
 * Moe: Toby, before he becomes a Creepy Child.
 * Moral Event Horizon: The "Poor Thing" scene with Judge Turpin and Lucy Barker, and the scene where Mrs. Lovett.
 * It was made clear that Mrs. Lovett understood what she was doing, since she was crying throughout. Creepy.
 * Sweeney This is so bad that when he finds out, he considers it a moral event horizon for himself.
 * Most Annoying Sound/Hell Is That Noise: The terrifyingly loud, shrill sound of the factory whistle.
 * Nightmare Fuel: The rape scene. Jesus Christ, the rape scene. Some consider it to be the scariest scene in the movie.
 * The beggar woman's capacity for this was ramped right up for the movie.
 * "City on fiiiiiiiiiire, city on fiiiiiiiiire...MISCHIEF! MISCHIEF!"
 * The scene with Toby in the evil basement, when the poor kid finally learns what's in the pies -- and then has to watch as the just-murdered Beadle Bamford gets dumped right down into the basement with him. And then Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney come down into the sewer looking for him because they want to murder him too.
 * When Sweeney finds out Lovett lied to him, he takes her off her guard by dancing with her - and throws her into the furnace. Unlike the stage play, we can see exactly what happens as she screams and thrashes while she burns up.
 * Imagine being Mrs. Lovett and what your thinking in that situation. The person you love finds out that you indirectly killed their wife by lying to them about if there spouse was alive or not. But suddenly, the person your in love with is okay with that! You start dancing with him and he's saying that she's already dead and that there's no point of worrying about the past. You think you're gonna marry him, live together in your dream world when suddenly, he throws you into an open oven. As you're screaming in pain and agony, he closes the oven door with an expressionless look on his face. And that's how you die...
 * Paranoia Fuel: A trip to the barber's or a pie shop both made very creepy for the Victorian audience. For the typical modern audiences, this story has made the straight razor unsettlingly best known as a weapon of murder.
 * Retroactive Recognition: Hey girls, it's Caius playing Anthony!
 * Romantic Plot Tumor: The romance subplot between Johanna and Anthony, particularly in the film where Relationship Compression comes into play.
 * On the other hand, another way to see them is as a parallel to the Todd/Lucy couple ("she was beautiful, and he was naive", particularly if you take the interpretations where Johanna is crazy into account)
 * Squick: The whole thing is pretty squicky, but Judge Turpin gets a special mention for "Johanna (Mea Culpa)," where he flagellates himself to orgasm while watching his teenaged ward through a keyhole. While singing. It was cut from the original Broadway production, and, unsurprisingly, it's only occasionally reinstated. When done well, the sequence can be one of the most chilling in the show...which is about serial murder and cannibalism.
 * Tear Jerker: "Forget my face."
 * The rape scene.
 * "Not While I'm Around" is more of a Fridge Horror tearjerker, since it all goes waaaaaay downhill from there.
 * Mrs. Lovett, trying to conceal her anguish as she tries to remain cheerful around Toby, sensing that bad things will come for Toby because he voiced his suspicions about Todd.
 * Anthony's and Johanna's final interaction on-screen. He assures her that they can leave all the "ghosts" behind. However, Johanna disagrees, believing that the ghosts would never die. Although its implied they did manage to escape Tupin's clutches and move on, Johanna knows that the trauma will always haunt her.
 * The final scenes with Todd, . Todd may have ended up becoming a psychopath, but the look on his eyes is the look of a completely broken man. Can you say Stoic Woobie?
 * What an Idiot!:
 * Anthony when he bursts into Sweeney's barber shop in the midst of his shaving of Judge Turpin. What was he expecting?
 * One wonders why Sweeney takes Lovett's advice to be patient in plotting his revenge at heart, spending his sweet time singing along with Turpin about pretty women. What was he expecting? Although... see "Squick" above.
 * Mrs. Lovett, basically keeping Lucy a secret from Todd when she kept coming around her shop. Sweeney's shown no hesitation in killing anyone who's crossed him, particularly in regards to his family. What was she expecting?
 * Pirelli, confronting a man who's been in prison for fifteen years, and blackmailing him. What was he expecting?
 * The Woobie: Toby, poor kid. Johanna too, seeing what she's had to live with.