Aliens Vs. The Demon Barber

This afternoon I went along to the Cineworld cinema and saw a couple of films. The first one was Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem, directed by the Brothers Strause. The film, a sequel to the 2004 original, opens when the crew of a Predator spaceship comes under attack from a 'Predalien' (a Predator, Alien hybrid thing) causing them to crash near a small present-day American town. All the Predators are killed but the Alien 'facehuggers' they were transporting escape and merrily start infecting everything in sight. Meanwhile, on the Predator homeworld, a single Predator learns what has happened and decides to go to Earth to round up the Aliens. Caught in the middle are the townspeople. The film was probably one of the worst things I have had the displeasure to watch in years, and I am a fan of both the Aliens and the Predator series. The story is completely obvious and the characters are clueless. Worse still it is boring and shot so darkly it is almost impossible to see what is going on half the time.

After watching the film I went right back into the cinema and saw Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Tim Burton. Set in 19th Century London, the film tells the story of barber Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) who is happily married to a beautiful woman and has an infant daughter. However, the evil Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) is infatuated with Mrs Barker and has her husband deported to a penal colony on a trumped-up charge in order to rape his wife and raise Barker's daughter, who he keeps as a prisoner. Fifteen years later Barker, now calling himself Sweeney Todd, returns to London, consumed with a desire for revenge, and sets himself up as a barber. Sickened by humanity he begins to kill his clients with his straight-razor and donates the corpses to his downstairs neighbour, Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) who uses them for her popular meat pies. It might be the first splatter-horror period musical. The film is very entertaining, with the show-tunes often working surprisingly well with the gory violence. It is very stylishly made, with a surprisingly effective emotional core. I still haven't heard anything from Michele and I am still no further finding out what on earth is going on. At the moment I am just waiting, because I don't know what else to do.