|
Burke And Hare
[Redemption]
1972; color
Directed by Vernon Sewell
Starring: Derren Nesbitt, Harry Andrews, Glynn Edwards, Yootha Joyce, Francoise Pascal & Yutte Stensgaard
|
|
I was completely unfamiliar with the legend of Burke and Hare before watching this aptly named film, alternately titled Horrors Of Burke And Hare, so before I hit play I decided to hit up ye olde internet for a little background check. According to Wikipedia - and echoed by enough alternate sources to be considered accurate - "The Burke and Hare murders (also known as the West Port murders) were serial murders perpetrated in Edinburgh, Scotland, from November, 1827 through October 31, 1828. The killings were attributed to Irish immigrants William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses of their 17 victims to provide material for dissection. Their purchaser was Doctor Robert Knox, a private anatomy lecturer whose students were drawn from Edinburgh Medical College. Their accomplices included Burke's mistress, Helen M'Dougal, and Hare's wife, Margaret Laird. From their infamous method of killing their victims has come the word "burking", meaning to purposefully smother and compress the chest of a victim." Fascinating right? I thought so too. Since that paragraph pretty much sums up the plot of this film, we can assume the folks behind the scenes thought the original story was fascinating too. Of course that didn't stop them from peppering up the screenplay with a sub-story revolving around a local brothel, affording the viewer many opportunities to see bare breasted British gals. (I mean, it was the '70s and all...) Truthfully bare breasts are not a selling point with me but I have to admit I liked this mix of historical accuracy and ridiculous fabrication. (Plus, when the girls were dressed, the young ladies' prostitution whore outfits were ridiculously awesome. And awesomely ridiculous!) I also liked the tone of the film in general; a black comedy meets British horror mash up, kind of like a less gory Shaun Of The Dead. (Speaking of which, SOTD star Simon Pegg is set to star in a remake of this film sometime soon.) And what Burke And Hare review would be complete without mention of the theme song - a raucous Sweeny Todd-esque barroom sing along that I can't believe hasn't been made famous, or at least covered by, some NME friendly garage rock band. (It also provides an interesting contrast to the PBS style black and white woodcut credit sequence.) As was the case with the other recent Redemption release I reviewed (Daughter Of Darkness) rounding out the package are some trailers, a still gallery and an entertaining short entitled "Grave Desires: Corpses On Film" featuring the fetching Dr. Patricia MacCormack.
—Bunny
|
|
