Burke and Hare

(On Cable TV, May 2021) For classic horror fans, The Body Snatcher features a mixture of familiar names— infamous murderers/graverobbers Burke and Hare, for one (their infamy extending well into twenty-first-century takes), producer Val Lewton for another, and also chameleonic director Robert Wise in one of his earliest directing credits (and perhaps his first true end-to-end project). But what will get most people’s attention is Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in the same film, neither of them playing the monster archetypes they’re best known for. This certainly isn’t their only collaboration, and Lugosi’s role is minor at best — but Karloff is quite good, and more importantly he’s good in a somewhat respectable context: The Body Snatcher is heavy on atmosphere and historical references, helmed by a director who clearly wanted to impress. Even the premise, having to do with murderous graverobbers, is far from lurid monster features. The result is very decent no matter the age of the film: it’s a signpost in the filmography of many familiar names, but it’s also a film that holds up decently as long as you don’t walk in expecting cheap thrills or camp monsters.