Burke and Hare

reviewed by guest lecturer Will Tooke

When I was about 13, I went on a school trip to London. We did the usual sights –the Science Museum and a West End show, the then new Millennium Wheel (wow I feel old).  But I remember none of those things. What really stuck with me was the London Dungeon’s realistic recreation of the Jack the Ripper murders.  It was, I suppose, pretty unsuitable for kids: latex prostitutes scattered over the plaster cobbles of fake Whitechapel, rubber intestines strewn from gaping red abdominal cavities.  And the thing is, I wasn’t actually scared by all the gore. I wasn’t a squeamish kid, and I love a good gore fest if it’s done well. (Check out Peter Jackson’s riotous 1993 zom-com  Braindead) If not disgust, then what? It just all felt uncomfortably distasteful, even though the scenes before me then recreated events that occurred over a century previously.

I was worried then that Burke and Hare would be similarly opportunistic, it’s a pretty gory story about two evil men who line their pockets by killing the unsuspecting inhabitants of 1820s Edinburgh, to sell off their corpses to unscrupulous medical schools, where they were dissected for medical students and the curious public alike.  It would be all too easy for a film to be a modern version of such a grim spectacle, peddling the punters lopped up stiffs for lowbrow entertainment.

I realize already having dismissed the London Dungeon as distasteful, applauding Burke and Hare’s humour may seem like I’m having my cake and eating it. But if done seriously, such a film would be just nasty.  American TV movies seem to love making blandly serious biopics about more recent serial murderers, and why anyone would want to sit through them? What makes Burke and Hare palatable is the streak of black humour that runs thicker than blood throughout, owing more perhaps to Monty Python than to reality. It’s a pretty difficult line to walk, and make no mistake that in this film bones break, arteries squirt, and organs splatter, but somehow it gets away with it.

Firstly, it’s directed by American John Landis, who helmed such greats as An American Werewolf in London and The Blues Brothers, as well as the video to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, and his understanding of horror and comedy show are clearly visible.  Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft’s script has some great dialogue and although they rightly take liberties with what actually happened (because you should never let the truth get in the way of a good story), a lot of the plot remains fairly true to reality. It may not be so authentic in terms of story, but in terms of set the film impresses in its recreation of the slums of the pre-industrial 19^th century Scotland, realized in shades of grimey gray and excrement brown, inhabited by dour, whiskery faces with dirty teeth. You know, a lot like Scotland today.

Also to the film’s strength is the excellent cast. The end credits are very much a who’s who of great British character actors: Christopher Lee, David Schofield, Tom Wilkinson, Jenny Agutter, Hugh Bonneville, Tim Curry (Dr Frank-N-Furter himself, lest we forget) and an almost unrecognisable Bill Bailey are all present, but the real stars of the show are undoubtedly Andy Serkis and Simon Pegg in their roles as the eponymous body snatchers. Serkis, whose ability as a great physical performer is indisputable after he brought Gollum to life in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, excels as the darker, more Machiavellian Hare, and Simon Pegg nicely contrast this with his weaker willed, more naïve Burke who lets greed get the better of him.  Whereas in my last review of RED I complained that jam packing the cast full of stars was distracting and felt simply like a way to generate buzz about a not very good film, here you get the impression that they actually wanted to do the movie because its clear that they all had a lot of fun making it. Landis even finds the time to fulfil the wishes of millions by bumping off snobby film director Michael Winner, more recently known for those awful ‘calm down dear’ insurance ads. It’s just a shame they couldn’t have found time to jab a stiletto into the ample gut of the Go Compare opera singer…  Amongst the supporting cast, the diminutive Ronnie Corbett stands out, very nearly stealing the show as Captain McLintock, the bumbling leader of the Edinburgh militia who nevertheless manages to capture Burke and Hare, evoking Shakespeare’s slapstick guardsmen Dogsberry and Verges from Much Ado About Nothing.

Shakespeare is actually an appropriate cultural comparison to make- the crushing inevitability of a less than happy ending, and the ambition for money and power corrupting conscience that both occur in Burke and Hare are equally present in much of Shakespeare’s best work – so too of course, was a sense of humour and a healthy smattering of blood of guts. If you ever struggled imagining what that famous description of Macbeth’s battlefield victim being ‘unseamed from the nave to the chops’ would actually look like, then rest assured that Burke and Hare will leave you in know doubt.

Macbeth, funnily enough, is also where the film itself becomes a little undone – a subplot about Burke deciding to finance an all female production of the Scottish Play just to get into the lacy knickers of aspiring actress Ginny (Isla Fisher) drags a little, and just isn’t as funny as it could have been. Small qualms aside, Burke and Hare is genuinely entertaining, and at 91 minutes doesn’t overstay its welcome, somehow managing to be a bright and breezy romp about, uh, period serial killers.  Perhaps then Fred and Rose West: The Musical could work, just not for another few hundred years.

2.1 – Not at all like what some reviews would have you believe,

Burke and Hare is a delicious slice of macabre comedy that definitely won’t

be to everyone’s taste, but has a lot to like. Bloody good fun.

(If you are confused about the rating system please click on the ‘About This Blog Page’ which will explain it all)

What would you do to make a little extra cash?

This is the question that arises in my mind when I see the trailer for Andy Serkis and Simon Pegg’s new film ‘Burke and Hare’ which is out 29th October. Directed by John Landis (who did Michael Jackson’s Black and White music video as well as Thriller) the film follows two Irish men in Edinburgh who provide doctors with cadavers in exchange for money. But grave robbing is not the worst crime these men commit and as dead bodies become scarce the two start murdering people. Less of a historical piece and more one of black comedy this film will likely be hit or miss with many.