Jan
1
2008
Title: Sweeny Todd: Singin’ in the Pain
Author: Mark Salisbury
Publication: Fangoria
Issue: January 2008
Secreted below her Pie Shop on London’s Fleet Street. Mrs. Lovett’s bake house is a brick-walled, arch-ceilinged vision of hell, a catacomb for cannibals, packed with bloody cadavers, dismembered remains, piles of bones and an enormous meat grinder overÂflowing with arms, legs and sundry other body parts. To one side stands a walk-in oven, a huge iron furnace that flickers and roars as Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), wearing a black-and-white-striped dress, pulls open its heavy door, blasting heat and an orangey-red glow into the dark, gloomy space.
On the stone floor he several dead bodies, their throats slit wide open, their heads like squashed tomatoes—a consequence of being dropped down the chute that links Sweeney Todd’s barÂbershop, two floors above, to this place. Most are male, but there’s one woman whose limp, lifeless corpse is picked over by a distraught Sweeney (Johnny Depp).
After a beat, Sweeney looks up, his dark-rimmed eyes churnÂing with anguish and anger. He gets to his feet, and starts toward Mrs. Lovett, his pallid visage, shirt and waistcoat—and thick mane of wavy black hair with its dominant skunklike white streak—all drenched in blood.
In his right hand, he grasps the handle of a cutthroat razor, its blade dripping pearls of bright crimson.
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