...an unusually sober and literate take on the Burke and Hare legend, worth commending to genre fans…with stark photography and a steely grasp on the moral issues involved, The Flesh and the Fiends isn’t far behind Val Lewton’s peerless The Body Snatcher…

What makes Peter Cushing so terrifying in this historical horror picture is that he believes in what he is doing

Grisly British chiller. Donald Pleasence is particularly good.

**_Peter Cushing’s missing Frankenstein flick, sort of_** In 1828 Edinburgh, an ambitious doctor of anatomy (Peter Cushing) needs corpses for his work, which are dubiously supplied by two base men (Donald Pleasence and George Rose). This can’t end well. Shot in B&W (unfortunately), "The Flesh and the Fiends" (1960) is based on the infamous Burke and Hare murders and has been released under various other titles, like “Psycho Killers” and “Mania.” It was the first horror flick to feature Cushing not produced by Hammer Films, but it was shot at one of the studios that Hammer used in the greater London area and involved some of the same talent (at the time or in the near future), such as director John Gilling. So, naturally, it’s similar to a Hammer film. It's most comparable to Cushing’s Frankenstein movies since Dr. Robert Knox comes across as a real-life version of Baron Victor Frankenstein, not to mention the events take place just a decade after the publication of Mary Shelley’s Gothic novel. For those not in the know, Cushing starred as Dr. Frankenstein in six Hammer films between 1957-1974. Being based on a true story, this lacks the sensationalism of Hammer horror; it’s unsurprisingly more dramatic and mundane. Yet I liked how Dr. Knox is fleshed out (similar to Cushing’s Victor Frankenstein), as well as the side story involving one of Knox’s Med students (John Cairney)…