Burke and Hare will be the first film John Landis (The Blues brothers) has directed in over ten years, yet looks every bit as comical and intriguing as some of his previous efforts; despite the rather macabre and gruesome topic of the movie, which focusses on two of Scotland’s most prolific murderers.
Actually the murderers; Burke and Hare (who will be played by Shaun of the Dead’s Simon Pegg, and Lord of the Rings’ Gollum; Andy Serkis; respectively); weren’t Scottish, but Irishmen who immigrated to Scotland in the 1820’s, and were responsible for grave-robbing, before they progressed to conducting a number of murders, in order to sell the corpses of their victims for the purposes of medical dissection.
Yet despite the rather horrific nature of the truth, behind Landis’ tale, he has chosen to make it a fairly light film, and introduced some fairly broad-ranging, scatological, humour (which roughly translated means there will be plenty of fart jokes and toilet humour) to accompany the bumbling heroes along their journey; as rather than vilifying the subjects, they appear to be presented as fairly likeable people, who are poor, misguided, and just out to make a quick buck (or £3 as the case may be).
Also starring with Pegg and Serkis are Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers), Christopher Lee (The Lord of the Rings), Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins), Stephen Merchant (Extras), Bill Bailey (Hot Fuzz), and Ronnie Corbett (of The Two Ronnies), among others, which make for a seemingly excellent cast, and one that should be able to turn the twisted comedic premise into cinematic gold, by the time it gets its U.K. release on October 29th.
