Bloodthirsty Butchers

BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS is Director Andy Milligan's dubious take on SWEENEY TODD. As such, it contains all of the Milligan mainstays: sub-trash, thrift store costumes, beyond rubbish dialogue, "actors" who appear dazed by their surroundings, not-so special effects, etc.

John Miranda plays the barbarous barber, and Jane Hillary is his ghoulish, piemaking accomplice, Maggie Lovett. In all fairness, the two principals don't do a bad job of wading through this swill. Alas, Milligan's signature lack of production values leaves them adrift, while the other characters leave no impression at all.

As with the vast majority of the Director's epics, the main problem lies in just how bloody boring it all is! One vacuous vignette after another shuffles across the screen, interrupted only occasionally by some rib-tickling violence.

Milligan movies are a true test of one's constitution. This one is no exception! Most viewers will wilt almost immediately, while even the initiated will fight to pay attention or to stay awake. This is incredibly difficult, even if your eyelids are stapled to your forehead, and you've placed a hot coal in each shoe!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: #1- The "love scene" that's almost as erotic as watching pumpkins bob against each other in a barrel! #2- For anyone who can discern the breed of dog that makes the humanoid whining sound that's found in this film!...

Inspired by the classic urban legend of Sweeney Todd, a murderous barber who kills his customers and has them baked into pies by his business partner, Bloodthirsty Butchers keeps the basic foundation and makes up the rest with less than ideal results.

Of course, it looks even cheaper than an elementary school play, but that could be forgiven if the script was tight and the acting was better. Unfortunately, it's not and the most you have to look forward to are a few gory murder scenes that don't much convince.

Bloodthirsty Butchers (1970)

1/2 (out of 4)

Barber Sweeney Todd (John Miranda) and baker Maggie Lovett (Jane Hilary) realize that they can be a service to one another and team up in this maddening Andy Milligan film. Sweeney Todd murders the patrons who sit in his barber chair and he sends the meat over to Lovett for her pies.

I've seen the majority of the Milligan titles that are currently available and I must say that I'm amazed that he has such a following. Well, let me take that back. It's easy to see why such horrible films would have a following since many people love bad movies. What shocks me is the fact that there are many people out there who feel that Milligan was a great director and that something like BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS was a great film.

It's pretty darn hard to mess up the Sweeney Todd story but Milligan manages to do that with this incredibly poorly acted film that doesn't do a thing in regards to entertainment. We start off with a man betting chopped up by the butcher and the special effects are so awful that you can't help but laugh. In fact, Milligan doesn't even try to hide how poorly the rubber hand and fingers are!

From here the film pretty much turns into a boring melodrama as we see Todd and Lovett talk, argue, fight, make up and do a wide range of other dialogue scenes that just really drag the film down. It doesn't help that the performances are on the bad side and it really doesn't help that the dialogue is some of the worst that you'll ever have to listen to. There's not much real gore or violence so that's another letdown.

What really shocks me about Milligan and films like this is that he apparently felt that someone wanted to watch them. His films are basically arthouse movies that try to pass themselves off as exploitation or horror movies. The problem is that those elements are never delivered an instead we are left with rather poor films.

Bloodthirsty Butchers is z-grade horror director Andy Milligan's version of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Working on an extremely small budget, Milligan unwisely attempts to recreate the look and feel of Victorian England and, rather unsurprisingly, fails on almost every level, with particularly unconvincing production design, the film boasting patently fake shop facades and completely unauthentic costumery (did Milligan actually research the era or did he just go with what he imagined it was like?).

The film stars Annabella Wood as Johanna Jeffrey, assistant in the bakery run by Maggie Lovett (Jane Hilary), who gets the delicious filling for her meat pies from barber Sweeney Todd, who kills customers with his cut-throat razor. Johanna is planning to quit her job to marry her fiancé Jarvis (Michael Cox), but is unaware of the murder and mayhem that surrounds her, at least until Jarvis falls victim to the evil Mr. Todd.

Weighed down by interminable scenes of dreadful dialogue, and suffering from hopelessly amateurish direction, the film is yet another test of one's resolve from the always awful Milligan, making it through to the end being a challenge for even the most hardened of horror fans. Along the way, we are treated to just a smattering of nudity (from Susan Cassidy, as songstress Anna, who is having an affair with Sweeney), some terrible gore (rubber appendages are hacked off and there's an unconvincing meat cleaver in the head effect), and the unforgettable sight of a severed breast in a pie, all of which just about saves the film from earning the absolute minimum rating possible.

BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS is another vapid mess of a film by cult director Andy Milligan, a guy whose films take amateur to a new, low level. This one's as cheap and inept as the rest of his oeuvre and the only interesting thing about it is that it was shot in London for an extra level of authenticity.

Sadly as a film this is a complete mess not to mention a travesty of film-making. It's a near-plot less effort in which various characters converse and romance each other for almost the entire running time. Occasionally some gore scenes are spliced into the mix and these consist of blood with the same consistency as ketchup and some rubber body parts being amputated. There is a plot twist of sorts at the climax but that's the only real incident here.

The entire cast is amateurish and seems to have been picked from a local amateur theatrics group. Certainly they're wooden and awkward in front of the camera although the dialogue they're being asked to deliver is about as mind-numbing as you'd expect. Milligan has cast a couple of attractive young starlets but his level of interest goes no further; they may look the part but as soon as they open their mouths the realism disappears. BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS is another dog of a film from this director and only die-hard bad movie lovers are likely to enjoy it.