The story

Cross one macabre-obsessed director with the grisly legend of a homicidal barber, add a lick of singing, a smart, oddball cast and what do you get?

One of the most anticipated films of the year: "Sweeney Todd -- The Demon Barber of Fleet Street". It joins a handful of films in the improbably eccentric horror-musical genre, but it's fast becoming known as the "singalong slasher."

Directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Sasha Baron Cohen, "Sweeney Todd" is based on the award-winning musical by composer Stephen Sondheim. It is the tale of a serial-killing 19th century English barber who -- fuelled by vengeance after a corrupt judge ruins his life -- realizes the deadly potential of his blade on a murderous rampage around the streets of London.

For a director whose love of the gruesome is written all over films like "Beetle Juice" and "Corpse Bride," the story of the slicing, dicing serial killer was perfect. "It's my territory," nods Burton who has been "marinating" the project since he first saw the stage show 20 years ago. "It's quite a daunting task you know because [Sondheim] is such a brilliant composer and it's ... my favorite musical," he told CNN.

The music may be Sondheim's but the look and feel of the film is pure Burton. He has created a gothic vision of 19th century London for his cadaverous cast to inhabit, complete with his own ironic twist of wit. Burton says he fell in love with the humour of the stage show, but for the screen his aim was to get inside the emotional state of the characters. He likens the expressiveness he was aiming for to that of silent era actors. Read full article »