Crew
Director/Story – Steven M. Smith, Screenplay – Christopher Jolly & Steven M. Smith, Additional Writing – Terry Bird & Jason Ford, Producer – Terry Bird, Photography – Robert Horwell, Music – Josh Winiberg, Visual Effects – New Town Films, Makeup Effects – Kiera Oke, Production Design – Alana Dunlevy. Production Company – New Town Films/Greenway Entertainment.
Cast
Terry Bird (Sweeney Todd), Jo Dyson (Mrs Lovett), Steven Brandon (Tobias), Alexander Simkin (Sergeant John Babwitch), Toby Wynn-Davies (Judge Canning), Jason Ford (Lord Wright), Ian Ralph (Mr Neary), Lee Brown (Mr Fields), Robert Horwell (Inspector Crowley), Sam Anderson (Jane Thomas), Andrew Wright (Edward Thomas), Tyler Bowden, Alex Jeffs & Jed Kirby (Eton Boys)
Plot
London, 1846. Sweeney Todd runs a barbershop catering to gentlemen. However, Sweeney has a deep-seated hatred of the upper-classes due to his father being given a harsh sentence of twenty years on was when he was a child. He slits the throat of the gentlemen he tends, seeking out those who were involved in his father’s case. He is seen disposing of the bodies by Mrs Lovett who runs a neighbouring pie shop. She instead suggests he dump the bodies in the alley by her shop where she cuts them up and serves them as her meat pies. The disappearance of important members of society soon attracts the attention of a young police sergeant.
The Sweeney Todd story appears to have started as an urban legend sometime in early 19th Century England. There have been various claims that Sweeney Todd was based on a real person, but nobody has been able to show anything to substantiate this. The story was first put down in the penny dreadful The String of Pearls (1846-7), which was successful enough that it was adapted to stage the following year. There have been numerous adaptations of the story since. Film versions include the silent British Sweeney Todd (1926), the silent British Sweeney Todd (1928), the British sound version Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1936) with Tod Slaughter, Andy Milligan’s Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970), Sweeney Todd/The Tale of Sweeney Todd (1997) with Ben Kingsley and Joanna Lumley as Sweeney and Mrs Lovett, and Sweeney Todd (2006) with Ray Winstone.
The most famous incarnation of the legend was the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), which Sondheim based on an earlier play adaptation by Christopher Bond. There have been two filmed versions of the various stage performances with Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1982) and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001), before the Tim Burton film adaptation Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) starring Johnny Depp as Sweeney and with Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs Lovett.
Sweeney Todd: Slice & Dice comes from Steven M. Smith who has been a prolific director specialising in genre material since the mid-2000s with films such as Time of Her Life (2005), The Doll Master (2017), The Howling (2017), Doll Cemetery (2019), The Haunting of Borley Rectory (2019) and sequels, Scare Attraction (2019), Doll House (2020), Dead Again (2021), Doctor Prim (2021), The Haunting of Hythe House (2021), Ouija Hosts (2021), Remember Me 2: Forget Me Not (2023), Simon Says (2025) and Simon Says 2 (2025), as well as producing a number of others including the anthology Haunted (2013) and sequels. The film is co-produced by its lead actor Terry Bird.
Slice & Dice differs from previous Sweeney Todd films. Though it has a 19th Century Victorian Gaslight Milieu setting, it feels very much a film about contemporary England and economic social divides. Now, Sweeney gets a direct motivation for being the child of a man who was sentenced to twenty years, while all around we see people straining at the edges due to their economic circumstances. Sweeney’s revenge becomes a classist one where he is enacting revenge against the ruling aristocracy for their entitled privilege and treatment of those in the lowest circumstances.
Steven M. Smith manages a decent depiction of the slums of Victorian London on a low-budget. What his Sweeney Todd reminds of it one of the films of prolific British director Steve Lawson. It does okay. Smith never much focuses on the grisly aspects beyond a couple of throat slittings and showing Mrs Lovett hacking up a few body parts (the latter scenes come without much conviction).
To me, Slice & Dice falls down with the casting of Terry Bird. And okay so Bird produces and has also written the script presumably as a vehicle for him in the lead role. However, with beefy build, his big bald head and polite “yes, sir” manner, what Bird comes out is far more of what you would imagine the standard casting for a bouncer or maybe an off-duty housepainter rather than a vengeful killer. Jo Dyson’s Mrs Lovett is no better where Dyson comes across as an aging tart who has been around the block a few too many times.
Trailer here
Full film available here here