The Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970)

Milligan's excellent writing is on display in Bloodthirsty Butchers; unfortunately, so is the confusing camerawork and shoddy editing. Not even the offensive technical aspects can hide Milligan's storytelling ability, in this very clever take on the Sweeney Todd story, woven around themes of dominance and submission, the struggle to have power over others. Populated with a collection of selfish brutes and a very small number of decent human beings, murders are taking place on Fleet Street and nobody seems to notice, caught up as they are in their own little worlds--until they wind up murdered themselves.

There's not so much a plot as the strands of subplots involving each of these characters, woven together by coincidences of time, place, and action. The barber and his wife, the cabaret dancer he's screwing, and her boss she's screwing; the young bakery wench who's getting married, her creepy coworker who sexually harasses her, her boss and her boss' invalid husband with whom she's friends and who thinks his wife is trying to kill him--they're all connected by strands they're mostly unaware of themselves. The shocking story disturbs, as do the uncomfortable sadistic and masochistic relationships amongst most of the characters, which, having built up an atmosphere of moral squalor, makes some of the murders horrifically potent.

As I found with The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!, scenes of gore are chopped up. The gore is visible, but several awkward jump cuts destroy the fluidity of the moment to no good end that I can tell. Milligan's camera seems to usually be handheld, on the prowl; it wobbles, twists and turns to unconventional angles that at times are disorienting. This may be a legitimate style, but during scenes of high action, the camera is lost in a blur until a merciful cut skips over everything, leaving only the aftermath before our eyes. The awkward editing is the most unfortunate; the camerawork is tolerable and occasionally fascinating. Perhaps the producer is to be blamed for the bad edits. I can't say.

As I also found with The Rats Are Coming, Milligan is a talented writer of dialogue. He has a great sense for the vernacular and for developing his themes in what appear to be inconsequential discussions. One of my favourite bits of dialogue is when Sweeney Todd is educating his mistress about Shakespeare and tells her he had a dream in which she was Desdemona. She's obviously ignorant of the implications. That level of irony is way too superb for a film rated 1.7/10 on imdb.

Overall, an excellent story with great dialogue and well-developed themes, a little marred by poor technique.

If you plan on watching, don't read any other reviews for this film, lest a plot twist be spoiled.