Review of The Body Snatcher (1945) by Blais E — 09 Jan 2011

Awesome horror-period piece/ character study featuring Boris Karloff in the performance of his long and accomplished career as the insidious and disreputable grave-robber John Gray, who provides very-fresh corpses for vivisectionist Dr.

MacFarlane (The superb Henry Daniell-) at an exceedingly dangerous cost. Darkly moody and effectively frightening at times, with King Karloff clearly reveling in his part and delivering a palpably venomous and almost hypnotic performance as the truly evil Gray.

Also featuring a very soon on-the-skids Bela Lugosi in a thankless, throwaway role as one of Gray's victims. Based on a Robert Louis Stevenson story, which in turn, was based on the real-life exploits of grave-defiling duo Burke and Hare.