YMMV / The String of Pearls

• Catharsis Factor: Richard Blunt's arrest of Sweeney Todd. Since Todd is absolutely despicable in this version, in contrast to the Bond/Sondheim play and its take-offs, it's very satisfying to see Blunt so expertly outsmart him and catch Todd in another attempt at murder and make him face justice for his crimes.
• Complete Monster: While later given sympathetic qualities in the retelling of the legends, the original Sweeney Todd was a monster whose only motivation was cruelty and greed. Sweeney would lure customers into his barber shop and proceed to drop them down a tunnel to break their skulls or necks, before 'polishing them off' with his straight razor if they still lived. Coming up with another plan to make more money, he and his partner Mrs. Lovett cooked the bodies into meat pies to sell with a hefty profit. Hundreds of corpses are seen in the preparation room, and Sweeney also keeps a kidnap victim to work the furnace to keep the meat coming, with full knowledge that he'll eventually join the pies when Sweeney decides he's been there too long.
• It Was His Sled: Miss Lovett's famous meat pies are made of people. This is a horrifying twist that the original text really does "successfully" preserve until the very end, though with heavy foreshadowing that there's some horrible secret about the pies courtesy Todd's victims who are made to work the furnace under the pie shop. Unfortunately for the original authors, Sweeney Todd as a character has become pretty well-known and so almost no modern reader will be shocked at The Reveal after Todd has been caught in the act by Sir Richard Blunt.
• Nausea Fuel: The horror of unknowingly consuming delicacies made from questionable ingredients is what made this penny dreadful successful for its time.