John Landis is directing.
So, can Burke And Hare live up to its potential?
We meet them as two hapless confidence tricksters, arriving in Edinburgh fresh off the boat from Donegal.
With the Edinburgh militia on their tails, how long can their body snatching continue?
Ad content continues below
Burke And Hareseems to have happened very quickly.
Then, mostly quiet, until the first and only trailer came out at the beginning of this month.
Hopefully, youll forgive me for saying so, but this came together in very short order.
And it shows in the finished product.
Its not a bad film, by any stretch of the imagination.
In many places, its very winning and often very funny.
Its set in Scotland, but more specifically, in Movie Scotland.
Its not as bad as certain Hollywood interpretations, certainly.
Theres not a set of bagpipes or a kilt to be found.
Nonetheless, it somehow rings false, as if were just meant to find the setting quaint.
Largely, though, I liked the film.
Its not a straight-faced period piece of any kind.
This is not to say that the films above some quite spectacular slapstick.
More moments like this would have been appreciated, because Whitehouse shatters the more humdrum proceedings of the narrative.
There are an awful lot of unusual cameos that seem more geared to crowd pleasing than inspired casting.
Hey look, theres Tim Curry!
And theres Christopher Lee, doing precisely not much!
At one point, Michael Winner appears just for the purpose of plunging off a cliff.
The horror here comes from over-the-top sound effects alongside the defilement of corpses.
An extremely loud bone-crunching Foley effect will raise a nervous laugh, but it rarely exceeds a chuckle.
Even so, the promise of the talented cast is largely fulfilled.
Its a film thats easy to like, but harder to love than Id expected.
Rating:
3 out of 5
