Burke and Hare

Last night, we went to see Simon Pegg's latest movie outing: Burke and Hare. This is a black comedy based around the notorious 19th Century Edinburgh serial killers who bumped off their victims to supply cadavers for the capital's anatomists. I thought it was very funny and it really appealed to my sense of the macabre but, judging from on-line reviews, I seem to be in a minority on this. I'm wondering if they actually saw the same film as me?

Black comedy works best when the subject matter is really beyond the scope of polite conversation - let alone joking. The murders committed by Burke and Hare are really up there, although I suspect that a comedy about the Yorkshire Ripper is still a good few years away. However, in Burke and Hare much of the humour is actually physical and slapstick in nature, rather than being simply morbid, and this is surprisingly effective. The other thing that works well is portraying Burke and Hare as likeable chancers rather then the evil monsters that they really were - this deflects the real blame on to the anatomists who were more than happy to pay for the bodies without asking any questions of where they came from. It makes a good point of their hypocrisy and the fact that Burke alone took the sole responsibility for the whole affair.

If I would have one complaint about the film it is the lack of Scottish actors. None of the leads were Scottish and of the supporting cast only David Hayman and Ronnie Corbett were from Scotland with a few familiar faces from BBC Scotland comedies in cameo roles - including a brilliant turn from Tom Urie as one of the victims. Burke and Hare were actually Irish immigrants but judging from many scenes you would think that the whole film is set in Ireland.

So, why the bad reviews? Maybe modern audiences are too familiar with brutal gore-fests like the Saw series to appreciate the physical side of the humour? Possibly, they were expecting something along the lines of TV black comedies like Dexter or Six Feet Under? Maybe if it doesn't come in as a 4 hour 3-D spectacular they do not regard it as cinema fodder - in fairness I do think this film would work just as well on DVD. I'm not sure, but the cinema in Stirling was quite full for a miserable Wednesday night and the audience seemed to have a good chuckle all the way though. Anyway, I liked it, so sod them.