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Wonderful character development!

As Good As It Gets

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This movie is absolutely awful. Not sure if they are going for a humorous feel or if it is just really badly made, but it is not funny. It is definitely raunchy so maybe some people will like it for that. The title song that plays a few times during this movie is silly and poorly done, and very much speaks to the quality of the rest of this movie. I only watched this because Danish actress Stensgaard is in this and she was quite good in Lust for a Vampire. She was decent in this though not one of the main stars. She didn't save it. Just one poorly made scene I will discuss because it really stood out as bad was when one couple was kissing and the woman stops and screams at her lover out of the blue, for no apparent reason. I give many thumbs down on this piece of rubbish.

Two men go into business supplying medical colleges with cadavers by robbing graves.What you might recall about this film more than anything else is its theme song, which is certainly rather fun and moving. Bringing this tale to life is important and a great addition to horror cinema. Sure, it had been done before as "The Body Snatcher" and "The Flesh and the Fiends"... but it is my understanding that this was the first to be so explicit in the title.The film also asks another question, perhaps philosophical or ethical: do dead bodies have value? Certainly murder is a terrible crime, but what of people who died naturally? Certainly their owners do longer need them -- why not be taken for medical science? (We now have donor cards and the like, but indeed, how were surgeons to learn their craft without practice?)

While not as well known as the likes of Dracula and Frankenstein, the tale of Burke and Hare is still undoubtedly one of horror's classics (even more so for the fact that it's based on actual events!). There has been an impressive amount of films based on this story - the classic 1945 film The Body Snatcher being the best and closely followed by The Flesh and the Fiends and The Doctor and The Devils. Horrors of Burke and Hare is a somewhat more obscure film version, and while that's not surprising considering the competition - this is still a good take on the classic story and surely deserves to be better known! The film would appear to stick to the story quite closely and doesn't bring anything new to the table that wasn't already seen in previous versions. We follow two paupers, Burke and Hare, who soon realise that there is money to be made by delivering bodies to the local doctor. It's not long, however, before they realise that there's only so many dead bodies available and later set out to make some bodies of their own...The film is directed by British director Vernon Sewell, who previously made The Blood Beast Terror and The Curse of the Crimson alter. This film is undoubtedly better than both of those. While previous films based on this story have put their focus mainly on either the grave robbers or the doctor; this one is happier to broaden its scope and focus on not only both of these, but also things as well. This would not be a flaw if the point of the film still shone through effectively; but unfortunately this is not the case and big chunks of the story and its implications are left out. There also some confusion over exactly what style the director was going for; as the film takes on a very macabre tone at first, which works well, while at other times we are shown how much fun the lead characters are having (courtesy of an upbeat pop song!). The director does present his story very well, however, and the locations used all fit the tale very well. Unlike previous and later versions of this story, this one doesn't feature any real big stars, although all the main players are effective in their roles. Overall, if you're looking for a film based on this story; there are better ones out there, but this one is still worth seeing!

This is the fourth in a total of five film-versions revolving of the factual Burke & Hare murders and, although certainly not as mesmerizing and memorable as "The Flesh and the Fiends" (1959) or "The Body Snatcher" (1945), Vernon Sewell's interpretation of this macabre page in Scottish history is still a truly engaging and at times even frightening movie. It's actually unfair to compare this version with the aforementioned titles, as both those films starred famous names and perhaps even had a bit more financial means to work with. This is clearly a low-budgeted film with a very limited amount of set pieces and make-up effects, and relies mainly on atmosphere and a sinister choreography. To those that aren't really familiar with the story yet, William Burke and William Hare were two poor immigrants in Victorian Edinburgh that discovered a rather unorthodox way to get rich really fast. As cadaver-suppliers to the eminent anatomist/university professor Dr. Knox, they specialized in delivering the "freshest" corpses of all body snatchers. Of course, to keep assuring this service they quickly had to turn to murder. The main reason why "Horrors of Burke and Hare" is weaker than the other versions is because the story contains too many irrelevant elements and doesn't focuses enough on the known facts. Numerous sequences inside the fancy brothel are pretty redundant (albeit entertaining), whereas other very important aspects are seemly ignored. Like the actual interactions between Dr. Knox and his corpse suppliers, for example, or the men's dangerously increasing greed and immorality. Also, and this for the very first time, the wives of Burke and Hare are involved in the murders and I can't remember having read anything about this being the case. There's quite a lot of sleaze and gorgeous female nudity on display, which make the inaccuracy so much more endurable. Particularly the unearthly beautiful Yutte Stensgaard (the blond prostitute) and Françoise Pascal (the brunette) deserve a special mentioning. This film has its very own and totally unique title-song and that's arguable the greatest thing about it! It's an uncanny song, rather vulgarly sung and warning us all to BEWARE…of Burke & Hare. Perhaps not the best movie ever made, "The Horrors of Burke and Hare" is certainly on par with most contemporary British horror films (and actually better than Vernon Sewell's other films "The Curse of the Crimson Altar" and "The Blood Beast Terror") and it honestly deserves a wider distribution. One more film about the case came out during the mid-80's, namely "The Doctor and the Devils" starring Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea.