Five kinky reasons...

... to see the new Sweeney Todd film:

1. Johnny Depp putting a razorblade to Helena Bonham-Carter's throat. I didn't find the actual throat-slitting erotic, but the power play between these two was intense. Especially if you like breath-play, knife-play or the threat of it. It felt as if every single duet between the pair of them evolved into him pinning her and holding a knife to her throat. Not that I'm complaining.

2. Judge Turpin (that's Alan Rickman) talking about geishas! And catamites! And trying to corrupt the young male protagonist! And lusting after his young female ward! (Whom Sweeney also seems worryingly obsessed with given she's his daughter. There's more than a hint that he's got confused between the two blonde female relatives of his lost family.) Also Alan Rickman looking really hot in tight trousers and stubble.

3. Abuses of authority! Rape, incest, lashings, the workhouse! Well, at least the threat of them.

4. Lunatic asylums and corset-dresses with built-in straitjackets. (I so, so badly want to make a CP film set in Fogg's Asylum.)

5. Judge Turpin saying to his ward "I've spared the rod till now, but - ". I shall leave the rest to your imagination.

If you don't like musicals, don't bother seeing it. There's a lot of singing and it's all marvellously over-the-top. But if you don't mind that, and if you like grungy melodramatic Victoriana, corsetry, leather trenchcoats, tight trousers, Dickensian London, urchins, power abuse, victimised children, caged girls, sexual harassment, lunatic asylums, blood, razorblades, shaving, haircutting, exposed throats or cannibalism, then you'll probably enjoy it just as much as I did ...

P.S. I've filed this under my usual startles tag, "corrupting the innocent", but in case it wasn't obvious, there is nothing innocent about this film. Tim Burton is as perverse as the rest of us. In fact, he's probably worse.