The Body Snatcher backdrop
The Body Snatcher poster

THE BODY SNATCHER

1945 • US HMDB
May 25, 1945

Edinburgh, 1831. Among those who undertake the illegal trade of grave robbery is Gray, ostensibly a cab driver. Formerly a medical student convicted of grave robbery, Gray holds a grudge against Dr. MacFarlane who had escaped detection and punishment.

Directors

Robert Wise

Cast

Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Henry Daniell, Edith Atwater, Russell Wade, Rita Corday, Sharyn Moffett, Donna Lee, Ted Billings, Bobby Burns
Horror

REVIEWS (1)

AG

Alessio Gradogna

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Edinburgh, 1831: Professor MacFarlane, a student of anatomy, needs bodies to continue his experiments, illustrate them to his students, and save the life of a sick little girl. A coachman without scruples, abject and diabolical, provides him with the "raw material" who, in a first time, steals the corpses from the cemeteries and then gets them directly with murder, ending up blackmailing the doctor, who will kill him but who, out of remorse, will end up going mad. One of the best horrors of the 1940s, based on a story by Stevenson, veiled on the typical suggestions of Val Lewton's cinema (here producer and screenwriter), unhealthy and rich in ambiguities in showing with precision the merits and above all the limits of the unconditional use of medical science that in its unbridled ambition can lead to self-destruction. To enrich the film, the presence of the two iconic actors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff (one of the rare films in which we see them together), with the latter, in the role of the mad coachman, definitely winning the challenge, also thanks to an excellent direction that continuously places him in contrasts of light and shadow that highlight with absolute effectiveness his repulsive character.