Stephen Sondheim's macabre musical of revenge and madness, "Sweeney Todd," earns a striking if stomach-turning big-screen treatment in Tim Burton's film. Whatever shocks audiences experienced when this Grand-Guignol-with-a-beat hit Broadway in 1979, Burton renews and redoubles with this sung-through slasher film, a movie that spares no blood and no guts.

It's set in a Dickensian London of Gothic gray buildings, gray skies and gray-faced people, living and dead. "Sweeney" allows Burton to loose his twin muses Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter on the roles of Sweeney, the barber with a grisly grudge, and Mrs. Lovett, who moons over him as she makes "the worst (meat) pies in London."

A haunted Sweeney Todd, once a London barber, has returned to the city that exiled him 15 years before for a crime he did not commit. His one thought, sung out loud? "Revenge." He'll wreak his vengeance on the judge (Alan Rickman) who coveted the barber's beautiful wife, trumped up charges and transported the barber to Australia.

Once he's set up his chair above Mrs. Lovett's, and has sharpened and serenaded "My Friends," his collection of silver folding razors, Todd is butchering "the haves" in this world of have-nots, and all that flesh has to go somewhere.

A competing barber, the flamboyant showman Adolfo Pirelli, must be bested. Sacha Baron Cohen lends his voice, leer and stuffed tights to this fraud. "The Beadle," the judge's able and willing cop-accomplice (Timothy Spall, appallingly appealing) must be outfoxed.

But there's also the handsome young shipmate of Todd's, Anthony (Jamie Campbell Bower), who pines for the perverse judge's ward, Johanna (Jayne Wisener), and begs Sweeney's assistance in rescuing her.

Burton and screenwriter John Logan have slimmed down the musical to get this into two hours, so fans of the play may miss the odd moment or tune. "Pretty Women," that edgy duet between Todd and the judge; "Johanna," Anthony's swooning solo; and Mrs. Lovett's "The Worst Pies in London" and "A Little Priest" (about potential pie-fillings) are the musical highlights.

This is a singing trip to the abattoir, darkly amusing but also grimly sobering.

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