Excellent adaptation.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Back in 1985, Mel Brooks produced a Gothic horror film with a former 007 agent and a former Captain of the Starship Enterprise. That film was called 'The Doctor and the Devils', and is based on real events from a few 19th century murderers in England. And I'm not talking about the infamous Jack The Ripper, but rather 'Burke and Hare', who went on a big killing spree, where they took their deceased victims and sold them to a Dr. Knox, who would experiment on the cadavers to further the knowledge of science and the human anatomy.That is more or less of what is going on with 'The Doctor and the Devils' here. You can add to that with the iconic poet Dylan Thomas writing the screenplay for the film, who was recently seen in the film 'Interstellar' with the 'Do not go gentle into that good night' piece of dialogue. The film centers mostly on one Dr. Thomas Rock (Timothy Dalton), who is a a professor and doctor who examines and studies the human body.Dr. Rock wants to further the science and research of the human body, while others think that his methods aren't exactly kosher, including Professor Macklin (Patrick Stewart), who constantly tries to expose and stop Dr. Rock. Since Dr. Rock is needing more and more dead bodies to do his experiments on, he enlists the help of Robert Fallon and Timothy Broom (Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea), who hear about the "good" doctor's needs. Fallon and Broom both embark on a killing spree and deliver the newly dead to the doctor for a hefty fee and no questions.It seems like a reasonable deal, but Broom and Fallon (Burke and Hare) start murdering innocent people wherever they are, instead of doing the deed more rationally. There is an unfleshed out side story with Dr. Rock's apprentice (Julian Sands) and his lover (Twiggy), but it doesn't go anywhere really. To add to the Gothic horror tones, Thomas focuses on the religious themes of what happens to people's souls and bodies after death. And Rock must struggle with whether to keep accepting these dead bodies when he finds out that they were innocent murders.Everyone does a great job here with their roles, even if it seems a little too Gothic, but the dialogue is delivered perfectly. 'The Doctor and the Devils' is a great look with one hell of a cast and crew at some of the most horrific murders ever to grace the newspapers, and it still holds up thirty years later.

I wonder if this movie was made the same time as Jane Eyre. Timothy Dalton (I LOVE HIM!) had the same character type as Edward Rochester (only some of his lines in this movie were hysterical). Not that this is bad....BUT it's weird because the two movies are so different. I love Timothy's performance enough (LOVE Jane Eyre BETTER) to buy the movie.It was also a pleasant surprise to see Patrick Stewart, though he wasn't in it very much.The movie wasn't as "horrific" as I thought it'd be, which again was a pleasant surprise. Fans of Timothy, Patrick, Stephen Rea and Jonathan Pryce should check it out.

For my money THE DOCTOR AND THE DEVILS is a worthy horror film for several reasons. It has a good cast, including Timothy Bottoms, Jonathan Pryce, Twiggy, Sean Rea, Patrick Stewart, Sian Phillips, Beryl Reid, and Patricia Neal (whose name I did not note in the cast - she was the mother-in-law of Dr. Rock). Secondly, it had a screenplay that was legendary for decades as one of the great unpublished screenplays by a prominent writer (Dylan Thomas, of all people). Finally, for the only time in his career comedy king Mel Brooks decided to produce this work. Despite the occasional dab at horror that was in some of his spoofs (the Holacaust in THE PRODUCERS - both versions; anti - Semitism in "the Inquisition" segment of HISTORY OF THE WORLD, PART I; the monsters in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN and Dracula, DEAD AND LOVING IT; the murder conspiracy in HIGH ANXIETY all come to mind), Brooks always showed the spoof or satire behind the familiar sequences. Here, for the only time, he showed the grimness of serial killings.Those points said I have to limit the success. One misses Brooks' humor which leavens even the worse of his films. Still one can excuse it because Brooks did not direct the film (or at least it is not apparent if he did suggest anything). His production standards are high - he is creating the Edinburgh of 1828 - 29. For THE DOCTOR AND THE DEVILS is the retelling of the Burke and Hare story.As such it lacks the conciseness and tensions of the fictional retelling via Val Lewton and Robert Louis Stevenson of THE BODY SNATCHER (still the best version of the story), and the best historical account, MANIA. Also it lacks the blank verse approach of Thomas' original screenplay (which was never totally completed). It has been retouched here to make it more approachable as a movie project - which explains why it finally made it to the screen.The story does show how the murders were committed by Burke and Hare (Fang and Broome: Pryce and Rea), and even goes in greater detail about the luring of the victims and the method of suffocation used. But the variety of the victims seemed better shown in MANIA, and the chilliness of the killings were best shown in THE BODY SNATCHER in the sequences where the blind street singer and the blackmailing Joseph were both killed. Also here the capture of Fang is tied to his attempted rape of Jennie Bailey (Twiggy), a good set piece but not historically truthful at all. But the betrayal of Fang by Broome is correct - and here we see Broome smilingly getting away with it (not like the blinding of Hare - Donald Pleasance - in MANIA, which is not proved as true as of yet). Still, with all the changes, the story is still compelling enough, and the acting still first rate. It is a respectable attempt (as I said earlier) if not the best version of the horrible tragedy of the West Port.

"The Doctor and the Devils" is a slow and very underwhelming horror drama.**SPOILERS**Needing corpses for his anatomy class, teacher Dr. Thomas Rock, (Timothy Dalton) asks grave-robbers Robert Fallon, (Jonathan Pryce) and Timothy Broom, (Stephen Rea) to supply him with fresh corpses for his class. Complaining about the lack of bodies for him to teach with, his demands for fresher bodies gives Fallon and Broom a license to commit murder, and sell the bodies back to Dr. Rock as simply dead bodies. As the bodies in the class pile up and the controversy over the validity of his experiments continue, Dr. Rock is forced to make a drastic choice regarding the subjects of his class.The Good News: There are several things in here that are quite nice. This could have been a film of the old Hammer school. The presentation of Edinburgh as a grim and grimily realistic Victorian ghetto. The time frame of the film is expertly captured, with the right Gothic feel in the streets, the general feel from the surroundings, and the overall mood fit right in with the old films of before.The Bad News: There are several noticeable things off about this one. The pace of the film is the biggest culprit, going off at times on useless tangents. There are so many scenes in here that are inserted for no reason make the film so slow and padded out that it's mostly a bore to sit through. There's no reason why the film needed to include so many scenes with the two men parting as much as it does. They drag the film out very much and doesn't serve much purpose. They don't make is emphasize with them since they're so tedious. The forced romance between one of the robbers and a potential victim is the main one, wildly out of place and sticking out quite obviously. At one point the action stops altogether to allow a character to sing a song and it really slows it down even more. The fact that nothing happens at all isn't much either, and the film plays like a very boring and drawn out film. That hampers the film incredibly.The Final Verdict: A very slow and boring film with only a couple nice ideas and a few moments of watch-ability to make it worthwhile. If fans of the Hammer films could stay awake, this would be right up their alley, but only those who like these slower build-ups to horror films would enjoy this one. All others are advised to seek caution with this one.Rated R: Violence, Brief Nudity, several clothed sex scenes and brief aftermath of dead animals