Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is the fifth film in the Scares 4K set
Last month, we learned that Paramount Home Entertainment would be releasing a five film 4K box set called Paramount Scares Vol. 1, which would include Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Pet Sematary (1989), plus a pair of recent box office successes, Crawl (2019) and Smile (2022). Intriguingly, Paramount chose to keep the fifth film in the set a mystery… But now that we’ve reached the set’s October 24th release date, it has been revealed that the fifth movie in the set is Tim Burton’s 2007 film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, making its 4K debut! If you’re interested in adding the Paramount Scares Vol. 1 set to your collection, copies can be purchased at THIS LINK.
Directed by Burton from a screenplay by John Logan, Sweeney Todd is based on the stage musical by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. The stage musical was itself based on the play Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond. The film has the following synopsis: Evil Judge Turpin lusts for the beautiful wife of a London barber and transports him to Australia for a crime he did not commit. Returning after 15 years and calling himself Sweeney Todd, the now-mad man vows revenge, applying his razor to unlucky customers and shuttling the bodies down to Mrs. Lovett, who uses them in her meat-pie shop. Though many fall to his blade, he will not be satisfied until he slits Turpin’s throat.
Johnny Depp plays the title character and is joined in the cast by Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower, Laura Michelle Kelly, Jayne Wisener, and Ed Sanders.
Sweeney Todd reaches 4K with the following special features (with thanks to Movieweb for the list):
Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd: Behind the Scenes Look
Sweeney Todd Press Conference
The Real History of the Demon Barber
Musical Mayhem: Stephen Sondheim’s
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney’s London
Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition
Moviefone Unscripted with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp
If I remember correctly, I don’t think the trailers made any mention of it being a musical and I had no idea that it was one. When I got around to seeing it, I remember turning it off after the first song started as I don’t like most musicals. (Two have since managed to slip through the net though)
Ahhh, yeah, if you aren’t into musicals, that’s sure as hell not the one I’d pick to try and change your mind lol. Not that it’s a bad musical, it’s just that the songs are kinda not great as songs. It isn’t a musical you can sing along with, nor will most people be humming the tunes after watching it.
I will say, though, that as a movie, and a musical, it is one of the rare examples where the storytelling doesn’t take a back seat to the music at all. You can watch it and just use subtitles, and it works.