Colour

Tim Burton has made the use of colours, a huge influence on not only Sweeney Todd but also all of the other movies he has directed, and from this, dark, gloomy colours have become a trademark of his work. For example, some of his films that show this are "The Corpse Bride", "Edward Scissorhands" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas". Also this is illustrated in Sweeney Todd through the dark colours mainly greys, in the background with the only contrast being the slightly brighter blood.

The dark, gloomy background helps to both set up the scene and the genre of this film. The use of dark colours is stereotypical of the horror genre as it gives the since of fear of things that can happen in the dark to the viewer. As Sweeney Todd is directed by Tim Burton this is another reason why the colour pallet is very dark. The tradition of Burton's work being quite dark and gloomy with the characters having dark undereyes and being almost cartoon like which the viewer can also see in the animation of the opening which is made to look fake and cartoon like.

The use of the blood being brighter than the background means that the blood is highlighted as being an important symbol of the film. While the blood is still dark and is in the same group of colours it stands out, because of its difference. This helps to illustrate the main theme of movie: revenge. As previous stated the blood is a symbol of how bloodthirsty and full of revenge Sweeney becomes and as the amount of blood increases during the opening sequence (until the sewers is full of it and blood flows out to sea), it foreshadows the amount of blood and death at the end of the film. At the end, the large amount of blood which comes from Sweeney's death, flows down into the sewers and out to sea, reflecting the opening of the film and ending finally where it begun.