A black comedy about two 19th century grave robbers (Simong Pegg and Andy Serkis) who find a lucrative business providing cadavers for an Edinburgh medical school.There have been a few films about Burke and Hare, or inspired by the two ghouls. This, sadly, is not among the very best. With John Landis directing, you would expect more but I think he never really hits the mark. (I am glad to see him come back from his long hiatus, though.)Simon Pegg is toned down from the roles we are used to for him, and Andy Serkis never really comes into his own. Isla Fisher stands out somewhat, but only somewhat and nothing more. And then we have Tim Curry, who can make just about any film better just by showing up... and even he fails to excite me here.

@ Girlystyle: Hear, hear. The story itself is not "laugh-out-loud" funny; I thought the situational humor very rich. I'm not sure I agree with Burke's romantic subplot, but the true-crime basis for the script probably needed some kind of leavening. The production design was superb and there were plenty of great British actors to fill the niches. Andy Serkis, Simon Pegg, John Landis directing-- honestly, what is there to complain about? Perhaps part of the problem is the lack of good dark humor these days. I've always thought John Landis to have a good understanding of this genre (American Werewolf in London a case in point), but when I see this film I have a distinct feeling of "looking back". After all, dark comedy is a subset of satire, and if there's one thing lacking in the Industry now, it's a finely-developed sense of irony.

Director John Landis is mostly famous for having made some excellent comedies (Trading Places, Spies Like Us and Coming to America), but he's also revered in the horror cinema for having made the extraordinary An American Werewolf in London. 12 years after being absent in cinema, Landis decided to come back with the film Burke and Hare, which combines horror and comedy. And even though I found the combination of genres too unstable, the film kept me moderately entertained despite its mediocrity.The funny elements from Burke and Hare generally work because of the solid performances from Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis, but I wish the film defined its character better. In other words, the comedy is constantly clogging the drama, and the drama feels completely out of place in the context of the black humor employed by this movie. It's like watching two very different movies at the price of one, but combined in such a forced and inconsistent way that the final result is not very satisfactory.However, as I said on the first paragraph, Burke and Hare managed to keep me moderately entertained, and I think it deserves a slight recommendation because of that. However, there are very superior horror comedies (such as Shaun of the Dead and Tucker & Dale vs. Evil), which are better balanced and are funnier.

Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis play the infamous Burke and Hare--two horrible criminals who provided bodies to Edinburgh medical schools in the 1820s. Why was this so horrible? Because the folks they 'procured' weren't dead when the pair found them. Eventually the two were caught and the rest is history. This horrible series of crimes was the basis for many movies over the years--some of which changed the details and some of which stuck quite close to the actual events. I've already seen "The Body Snatcher", "Corridors of Blood" and "The Flesh and the Fiends"--and there are several other versions of the story out there to be seen. Of those I've seen, clearly "The Body Snatcher" (which is a fictionalized account that was written by Robert Louis Stevenson) is the best.In this 2010 film, the filmmakers have attempted to do something different--to make a comedy about the events. This is very problematic for two main reasons--it's hard to make a comedy about such grisly things and because the film just isn't very funny. If you are a fan of Pegg's looking for another "Hot Fuzz" or "Sean of the Dead"--keep looking. The problem is that the film just plays it all too straight and isn't wild or crazy enough to make the whole thing darkly funny (such as how they handled this sort of thing in "Sweeney Todd"). As a result, the characters are unlikable and flat.If you can ignore the fact that the film is not especially enjoyable, you can at least appreciate the look of the film. It looks very 1820s--except when they talk about photographing the corpses, as photography wasn't even invented until a decade LATER!!! Also, if you do watch, look for the least romantic sex scene ever filmed.