Burke and Hare

Vacillating between melodrama and bathos, this moves uneasily from one unfulfilled promise to another, dogged from first image to last by an overwhelming mediocrity. The film attempts a historical reconstruction of the murderous activities of the infamous bodysnatchers, with a concurrent reinterpretation of the economic and sexual contexts of the Edinburgh of the 1820s within which they operated. Needless to say, the sexuality is prudish, coarse and vicarious in the 'Carry On' style, and the attempts at horror are unconvincing in the extreme. JDuC.