My take: Boris Karloff sure is good at playing despicable characters, including his character in this movie, a body snatcher.
Rating: 2 out of 4 stars
Doctors seemed to use a whole lot of dead bodies back in the day. So many in fact, that people were able to make a bit of a living selling dead bodies. This film involves a cabman, played by Boris Karloff, who makes his money just that way. But he doesn’t get his bodies through donation. He takes them from graves and from the living.
Poster for The Body Snatcher
This movie is a retelling of the tale of Burke and Hare, the famous grave robbers/murderers from Edinburgh who sold corpses to medical science. They even reference Burke and Hare more than once during the movie.
If you remember, I disliked The Lodger because it was too close to a real murder story. In this movie, however, Boris Karloff sets it apart from the original story and keeps your eyes riveted to the screen. Plus, it has the bonus of Bela Lugosi. He’s a side character but he plays a pivotal part of the horror.
I would recommend this movie to anyone who likes a Boris Karloff or Bela Lugosi film as well as those who like classic horror movies.
I got the movie from Netflix’s DVD service. Here is the trailer on YouTube:
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