User Reviews

You know the story of "Sweeney Todd" now, most likely thanks to Tim Burton's recent movie. You probably don't know it though, from this take on the old tale from Andy Milligan-that notorious sleaze merchant that gave Al Adamson and Ted V. Mikels a run for their money.

It had to happen eventually. In my years of watching horror and exploitation from the 60's to the 80's, I'm finally reviewing an Andy Milligan movie. You see, from 1964 to 1990, Andy gave us many an exploitation and horror movie-none of which was any good, and barely watchable. "The Bloodthirsty Butchers" is no exception.

There is dialog and well, there is talk, and that's one of the things you will find here-lots and lots of talk. The movie reaches almost "Manos The Hands of Fate" levels at times, as you wait tirelessly for something to happen. While I love cheap looking gore effects, the violence is too few and far between, and in spite of it's reputation, the "breast" scene isn't that shocking.

I love cheap and sleazy exploitation as much as the next trash cinema devotee, but "Bloodthirsty Butchers" is the kind of bad that MST3K would tear apart mercilessly. Sadly, Milligan would die of AIDS in 1991, and if there is any movie of his I'd say I sort of like, it would be the delirious "The Ghastly Ones." This is no "Ghastly Ones" though-it's just bad.

When I bought this film, I expected to get a fun, 1970's exploitation film. Instead, I got this bore fest by amateur auteur Andy Milligan. Ah, Andy Milligan. With his tight editing, breakneck pacing , and wonderfully well known actors, you'd almost think you're watching...one of his home movies! Seriously, I couldn't even stay awake the first time I tried to watch it. The scenes of boring people dragged on an on, and whenever someone got killed, the film would slow down. Sometimes it would speed up too, making the characters voices sound like chipmunks, which was probably the best thing about this film. The script actually seemed a bit better than the film, and seems more well suited to be in a soap opera than in a grainy 70's sleeping pill where the actors constantly stumble over it's lines. The cover said "Their prime cuts were curiously erotic...but thoroughly brutal!" Trust me, there is nothing "erotic" about this film. Oh, we do get to see characters that resemble extra lumpy cottage cheese making out, but that's about it. And as far as "brutal", well, the viewer is brutalized the most with this here film. And another thing...

Bloodthirsty Butchers is set in London, England during the Victorian era where Sweeney Todd (John Miranda) owns a barbers shop where he regularly murders his clients to steal money & jewellery from them, he disposes of the bodies with a woman named Maggie Lovett (Jane Helay) who own a pie shop & uses the human meat to fill her product. However as Todd & Lovett become more desperate for money they take more chances & soon people start to suspect that something may be wrong with Mrs. Lovett's pie's...

Photographed, co-written & directed by Andy Milligan who is surely one of the worst filmmakers of all time (I still think Jesus Franco is the absolute worst) with the wonderfully sensationalistic titled Bloodthirsty Butchers perhaps his best known film although it's still really hard to sit through as it's an inept mess from start to finish. The film revolves around the legend of Sweeney Todd the killer barber who murdered his clients & then made pie's out of the bodies that Mrs. Lovett sold in her pie shop, at only 77 minutes long Bloodthirsty Butchers still drags & is just too random. The script is terrible, we never learn anything about anyone, people's motivations are slim to say the least & it's just boring. The character's & dialogue are both poor, the little sub-plots about Tobias & that woman with his baby, Todd seeing that woman & getting into arguments with Fisk, the customer who comes into the shop & ask's for a special pie & Mrs. Lovett's crippled husband who actually serves no purpose whatsoever.

It's amazing just how inept Bloodthirsty Butchers is, the editing is maybe the worst I have ever seen & what happens at the end is anyone's guess as it's just a mass of random scenes, people shouting & photography so dark it's impossible to see what's going on. The music is out of place & just randomly plays in the background, the photography is awful & the camera shakes around all over the place while the few gore effects here look pretty bad. Rumour has it Bloodthirsty Butchers was cut by the distributors before it was released, despite having a hand & finger chopped off early on all of the murder scenes look edited & are sometimes impossible to follow & hard to tell what actually happened. Made as a period piece Bloodthirsty Butchers look terrible with costumes & decors seemingly spanning decades & entire continents, it just looks odd & never feels like any one era or time period. Originally shot on 16mm film this was blown up to 35mm & as such it looks awful with dull colours, loads of grain & a soft picture.

The IMDb says Bloodthirsty Butchers had a budget of about $18,000 but Milligan did go on record as saying none of his films cost more than $10,000 even though this looks like it was shot for less than $2,000. The acting is awful, the scene where Tobias is 'secretly' following Jarvis about two feet behind him is embarrassingly bad.

Bloodthirsty Butchers is a terrible film, it's technical incompetence is staggering & it's an eyesore to watch, the ending is just baffling. Very stagy with lots of dull dialogue scenes full of tedious drama. You won't know whether to laugh or cry.

Surprisingly to state Tim Burton's idea came from a musical created in written by Frederick Hazleton in 1865 called Sweeney Todd: The barber of Fleet Street or also called The String of Pearls, which Todd and lovely woman named Mrs. Lovett killed and cooked meat pies and sold it to unsuspected costumers, however; the musical had upgraded through out the years and it wasn't until a Broadway play called Sweeney Todd rewrote by Christopher Bond in 1973 did the barber have an actual reason why he butchered helpless costumers and made meat pies out of them, therefore; I am sure that Bloodthirsty Butchers were inspired by the original play just like Tim Burton with the 1973 version. I was inspired by this movie greatly, but anyways lets say both movies a gore filled and amusing I like them both equally.

This movie should be destroyed and never be seen again. It's THAT bad. The camera quality itself is really bad. I've seen better quality on cheap camcorders from Best Buy. If you don't have enough money to make a good movie, (at least indie type horror movie), then don't make it. If you don't have enough money to hire good actors then don't make it. If you don't have enough money to hire a better script writer then don't make it! It's really not worth it! It's not like you are going to make a lot of money from making a piece of crap like this.

The acting and the accents were annoying. The acting had little to no real emotion. All the women in this movie were terrible. When their character was suppose to mad they didn't look mad. For example this one woman demanded to get her money back because she found a clump of hair in her pie. Instead of looking mad she looked like she was talking about the weather. It was so stupid. Everyone in this movie should never be cast in another movie ever again.

For a movie with the title Bloodthirty Butchers it really wasn't that violent. There was a scene where a dead woman's body was lying on a table and the killer was cutting her into pieces. Every time he made a move to chop one of her limps the camera quickly cut away. The dumbest death scene EVER. I just didn't get the point. I'm glad I didn't waste anymore of my time watching the whole thing. Just a waste.

Released as a double feature with Torture Dungeon, Bloodthirsty Butchers finds Andy Milligan making another one of the classics. Sweeney Todd to be exact.

Sweeney Todd (John Miranda) and Maggie Lovett (Jane Hilary) come together to kill off their customers, steal their money and valuables, and give the bodies to Tobias Ragg (Berwick Kaler) to disposal. After a few kills, they start getting way into murder, so they decide to start using the bodies to make meat pies, including one that has a woman's entire breast in it.

Shot in London, this actually feels like it could be in its time period, unlike the New York City Milligan movies where you can see modern buildings and hear the traffic. Milligan made five movies in 1970 alone - Torture Dungeon, Nightbirds, Guru the Mad Monk and The Body Beneath are the other films - and it's pretty wild that he was doing so much so often. Then again, to the casual viewer, these movies are overly melodramatic films made by a lunatic who can't even use a tripod, but to those who love these movies, well, they're also overly melodramatic films made by a lunatic who can't even use a tripod. Perspective is important.

TV Guide said that Bloodthirsty Butchers was a "gory and typically cheap retelling of the Sweeney Todd legend." One star.

I may have ranked it much higher.

Excessively talky and cheap horror movie apparently shot in England somewhere. The main girl from TORTURE DUNGEON is in it, although I couldn't point her out. Lots of subplots and bad acting. I've seen a couple of the actors in better movies. I think the pie-making lady turned up later on a British sitcom called GOOD NEIGHBOURS. My favorite character is "the slut." The scene where a couple finds a boob in a pie is priceless.