WithZelda WilliamsandDiablo Cody’sLisa Frankensteinfinding immediate cult success, andGuillermo del Toro’sFrankensteinandMaggie Gyllenhaal’sThe Brideon the horizon for 2025, it seems Hollywood and the general movie-going public are on the same page when it comes toMary Shelley’s belovedFrankenstein.Everyone loves a morally gray doctor and a healthy dose of medically-based body horror. For those who can’t wait until 2025 for the next blockbusters, try going back in time withJohn Gilling’s 1960The Flesh and The Fiends. Based on a real serial-killing duo from early 19th century Edinburgh,The Flesh and The FiendsfollowsBurke and Hare, played byGeorge RoseandDonald Pleasence, as they murder innocents around the city to sell as cadavers to a suspecting, yet apathetic Dr. Knox. Knox is buying the bodies as teaching instruments for his school, ranking the education of future doctors over the ethics of the medical field.Played by Scream King,Peter Cushing, he imbues his performance of Dr. Knox with a casual cruelty that makes the viewer’s hair stand up.
Peter Cushing established himself as one of horror’s most dependable leading men with his various Hammer horror movies. At the time, Hammer was a small production company struggling to put togetherThe Curse of Frankenstein.Cushing signed on to play the titular Victor Frankenstein and would go on to star in 23 Hammer-produced films. First-time viewers are often shocked to learn thatTheFlesh and The Fiendsisnota Hammer film. Itshares a swath of thematic and aesthetic similarities with Hammer films, as well as starring the iconic Cushing. In 1960, Pleasence was not yet a darling of the horror genre. Nearly two decades later, he would be cast as Dr. Samuel Loomis byJohn Carpenterfor what would become one of the seminal slasher movies:Halloween.Cushing and Pleasence are both better known for these other projects butThe Flesh and The Fiendsis worth checking out even if just to see how itforeshadowed their futures as foundational Scream Kings.
The Flesh and the Fiends
The Flesh and the Fiends depicts the infamous Burke and Hare murders in 19th-century Edinburgh. Peter Cushing stars as Dr. Knox, who unwittingly buys cadavers for medical research from the murderous duo. The film explores themes of morality and scientific ethics in a chilling narrative.
Peter Cushing as Dr. Knox Is the Anti-Hero Star of ‘The Flesh and The Fiends’
For a modern audience,The Flesh and The Fiendswon’t be a scary movie so much as it will be an unnerving one.Instead of horror,the movie invokes dread. Dr. Knox is a chillingly apathetic man who clearly suspects the cadavers he’s buying from Burke and Hare have not been ethically acquired.Despite being a doctor, Dr. Knox’s loyalties are first and foremost to the advancement of medicine, not to the patient or the sanctity of human life. Knox has no moments of cartoonish villainy and is never overtly threatening; he has no jump scares or moments of rage.Lacking the traditional villainous traitsthat often frighten an audience, Knox still manages to stand out as the film’s primary antagonist. This is entirely through Peter Cushing’s performance. Cushing plays the doctor as cold and uninterested in the moral quandaries of the surrounding characters. His tone is either sharp or distant, and Cushing keeps his jaw locked and his mouth grim. Fans of Hammer-produced films will recognize Dr. Knox as a mirror of Cushing’s other characters.The Curse of Frankensteinrocketed Cushing and Hammer to international fame. This success started a trend at Hammer with many scripts focusing on the doctor rather than the monster, examining his ethics through the same subtle horror thatThe Flesh and The Fiendsutilizes.
Playing Dr. Knox as he does for the majority of the film makes his final scene all the more memorable. After having been exonerated of any wrongdoings in the murders, Dr. Knox expects his classroom to be empty. He is shocked to find a room full of applauding students. There are more students in the lecture than there have been in any other scene of the movie, and it is clear Knox is shocked. Cushing plays this moment so well, going from braced for disappointment to genuine surprise. His eyes go wide and his jaw loses that tenseness it’s had for the previous two hours. When he speaks his final line, telling the class he wants to start by going over the Hippocratic oath, the audience can fully believe he’s learned from the experience of the movie. Cushing did not play a psychotic madman, killing for fun. His apathetic cruelty thawed once Knox fully reckoned with the reality of what he was doing.Getting to witness the payoff of Dr. Knox’s character evolution makes his final scene a standout.
Donald Pleasence Is Chilling as the Real-Life Serial Killer Hare
Of the serial-killing duo, Hare is the less obviously violent. He does not commit the majority of the killings, which the movie does not shy away from showing. Rather than coming off like a modern movie’s attempt to preserve likability, Hare is portrayed as the more villainous of the two. While he is not as hands-on as Burke, Hare is the one convincing Burke to kill every time he hesitates.He is the devil whispering in Burke’s ear.This sharp, determined nature is notable not just in Pleasence’s portrayal of Hare, but in his best-known role of Dr. Samuel Loomis. Pleasence plays both characters with a snake-like conniving.
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Donald Pleasence imbues Harewith a certain oiliness, making him nearly as disturbing to watch as Dr. Knox. Where Cushing plays Knox with a general lack of care,Pleasence imbues Harewith a nastiness that is more overtly threatening.Covered in soot and skulking around in the shadows looking for easy victims,Hare is the obvious predator of the film. After an angry mob chases down Hare, he is quick to blame Burke, who is then hanged. The ease with which he sells out his partner in crime is a clear signal that Hare cares for no one. All the antagonists of the movie are apathetic to the suffering of those around them, but it is only in Hare that this apathy feels overtly malicious. Hare’s eyes light up during each murder, and the viewer can tell that while he’s in it for the money, he also relishes the horror of it all. It’s a much more straightforward villainous role than the conflicted morals ofHalloween’s Dr. Loomis, who inadvertently unleashes the Boogeyman onto the world, spending the rest of his life trying to contain his bloodshed.
Gothic Set Design Adds Extra Horror to ‘The Flesh and The Fiends’
The influence of Mary Shelley’sFrankensteinonThe Flesh and The Fiendsbest shines through inthe gothic setting of the film. The sets for the movie can be split in half. Dr. Knox and his ilk occupy one half. These sets are sterile, medical classrooms where the human skeleton is the least unnerving decoration. The mansion Dr. Knox resides in is opulent but has the same hostile undercurrent of Bluebeard’s castle or Manderley fromRebecca.Everything there is beautiful but cold. The rest of the settings are where Burke and Hare spend their time. The narrow, gritty streets of Edinburgh are claustrophobic, trapping the audience in the exact same way Burke and Hare corner their victims. The dark shadows along the dirty cobblestone immediately alert the viewer to the danger lurking around every corner.These sets loop around to reinforce the basic character design of Dr. Knox, Burke, and Hare. Where these men hunt informs what kind of villain they are.Dr. Knox hides his cruelty away behind the excuse of advancement. Burke and Hare justify their violent murders by valuing money over the lives of their victims.
Shot entirely in black and white,The Flesh and The Fiendsleans into being a period piece. Released during the era of the Hays Code and the British Board of Film Censors,much of the raunchier material was dismissed as being historically accurate material. Mary being the film’s primary love interest when she is a sex worker was certainly a risky choice for Gilling to make. The gothic genre loves to blend sex and violence. Her death is the most drawn out, with the scene opening as a potential sexual assault and ending in her strangulation. The scene remains the most genuinely horrific in the film, with Mary’s struggles painful to listen to.Mary’s death invokes pop-culture knowledge of Jack the Ripper killings, but for a modern audience, her death remains eerily relevant.In a world increasingly tuned in to the exploitation of sex workers, Mary’s death is not only frightening but heart-wrenching.
Frankensteinand its many adaptations are so popular for expressing anxiety over developing technologies and how those advancements might mix with the human condition.The Flesh and The Fiendsportrays human malice by recalling two real serial killers who valued money over the cost of a human life. While the average citizen is not afraid of being killed for the express purpose of being used as a medical cadaver, there is a growing sense of dread over the worth of human life and value when compared to rapidly developing AI technology. Much of what powers this movie is its thought-provoking ideas, the main one being; “What is the cost of progress?“The Flesh and The Fiendshas no gore and the murder scenes will likely not scare even a horror newbie.What makesThe Flesh and The Fiendsa scary movie to this day is the performances of Cushing and Pleasence.Their depictions of Dr. Knox and Hare, as they play out the omnipresent thesis question of the film, trap the viewer inside a morally corrupt Edinburgh, where everyone seems to be a villain.
The Flesh and The Fiendsis available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.
