Musicals are usually such bright and shiny things. They’re romantic affairs of hyperrealism, a reality where people express themselves in song and dance routine as easily as people in the real world will yell and cuss at each other over the slightest infraction. Wouldn’t a pleasant song about being overcharged at the grocery store sound so much better than yelling about the fact that plantains were marked cheaper in the produce aisle then they were charged as at the cashier? Well, forget about the romance of the musical when it comes to Sweeney Todd, it’s a bloody horror show about vengeance and… well, vengeance. Combining music and macabre, Sweeney Todd is the perfect Tim Burton movie.

Based on the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical that debut in the 70s, which itself was based on an English urban legend from the 19th century, Sweeney Todd is about a man named Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp). Framed for a crime he didn’t commit, Barker returns to London years later as Sweeney Todd, a man changed by his injustice and imprisonment abroad. Todd returns home to find that his wife is gone and that his daughter is the ward of the malevolent Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman), the man who, out of jealousy, framed Todd and convicted him.

Here’s where things get dicey. Todd decides that all of London must pay for the crimes against him and so he returns to his old barber shop only to find Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) in residence. Mrs. Lovett is a maker of horrible pies, but she’s admittedly smitten with Todd. The two come up with a plan: Sweeney will do the killing and Mrs. Lovett will grind up the remains and bake them into pies and sell them to hungry Londoners. A plan elegant for its simplicity, but it gets Todd no closer to the man he really wants in his barber’s chair: Turpin. Fortune smiles though when one of Todd’s shipmates, the naïve Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower), falls for Todd’s daughter Johanna (Jayne Wisener).

Yes sir, this is vintage Burton, as in: if there were at least one Broadway musical that Burton was born to turn into a big screen bloodbath, it’s this one. It’s dark, it’s perverse, it’s funny, it’s all the things that are synonymous with the best works of Burton from Edward Scissorhands to Ed Wood. It’s also bold. An R-rated horror/musical is far from average and far from the PG-13 realm of play of Dreamgirls and Hairspray, so definitely not for the kids. It also differentiates itself by being more operatic with nearly continuous singing rather than songs that break up the dialogue. It’s not a new concept of course, but given the current slate of musical cinema, it’s refreshing.

Johnny Depp in his sixth collaboration with Burton gives a great performance while trying out his singing voice for only the second time (he sang in John Waters’ Cry Baby too). Depp spits nails with every note, his voice not only carries the tune but it also carries the character’s dementia and hatred. By comparison, Bonham Carter isn’t as good I found, but she does manage to hold her own against Depp’s towering presence.

Rickman is perfectly villainous as always, but I wish he had more screen time; the screen time he does get though, especially the scenes with Depp, are electric. Turpin just oozes perversion and evil as he leers (or rather, ganders) at the girl who for all intents and purposes is his daughter. The best surprise though is Sasha Baron Cohen, who ably proves he’s so much more than a one hit wonder as Todd’s barber competitor Signor Adolfo Pirelli. Like Rickman, Cohen makes a lasting impression with his limited time in character.

The actors are great, but all the usual Burton trademarks are also in place despite the absence of some of Burton’s major behind the scenes contributors. This London, as the song says, “There's a hole in the world/Like a great black pit/And the vermin of the world/Inhabit it/And its morals aren't worth/What a pig could spit/And it goes by the name of London.” Yes Sweeney’s London is a great, big pit thanks to the renowned Italian production designer Dante Ferretti who makes the City on the Thames look like a cancerous version of the Mary Poppins one. Dariusz Wolski creates a colourless pallet as cinematographer, making every spurt of blood red blood stand out all the more against the blacks, whites, greys and browns.

Sweeney Todd is not going to be to everyone’s taste, but I have little doubt that it will stand proud over the years to stand next to other Burton classics that, while not huge in the beginning, have aged well over the years to become regarded as masterpieces. It also serves well to demonstrate the unending diversity and range of Johnny Depp – any acting accolades collected will be well due.