Burke & Hare
 

Burke and Hare (2010) - IMDb

First off, I aint seen this and I dont plan to see it. But does anyone else find it actually pretty offensive to be making a comic movie with Simon Pegg about a pair of serial killers? It may be somewhat distant in time, but these are still real crimes and real horror. The people they butchered for profit had real lives that were ended.

Would people find it acceptable if they made a comical movie about Brady and Hindley? About Ted Bundy or Albert Fish, or Fred and Rose West?

Just because the victims of these particular butchers have been dead a little longer doesnt seem to me to mean they no longer deserve any respect.

Simon Pegg was on the radio talking about this during the week. Essentially, he explained that this story always focusses on the body snatchers, but never looks at the fully complicit doctors.

As for their murderous behaviour, how come these guys are inherently more evil than Luke Skywalker? I mean, B&H killed a handful for profit, but Skywalker killed the entire population of the Death Star, and the Death Star II for ideology!

There is an argument to be made that the complicity of the university buying the bodies was brushed under the carpet certainly... I would agree that they almost certainly knew where the bodies were coming from and didnt care.

I dont object to a movie on the subject, but its comic phrasing of the movie... the posters on buses playing up for laughs the mutilation of the victims.

The Death Star is a fictional creation... Luke Skywalker and his allies may have killed many innocent people working on board the Death Star... but they are fictional people.

I'm assuming this is a black comedy. This type of comedy has a long tradition and it has its function.

They're usually satirical in nature and do maintain a vein of seriousness in terms of its satiric goals. These things are usually funny, but they also often make us uncomfortable. Comedy isn't all spoof and silliness.

Even Kurt Vonnegut used comedy at times on serious matters.

And then there's Dr. Strangelove.

Think of it as an unconventional exploration of humanity; it just happens to use comedy as a vehicle, no matter how dark the subject.

It has to be said that Doctor Strangelove falls into the category of fiction that Strange mentioned however, Vonnegut makes an interesting comparison.

Slaughterhouse five talks about the day the allies bombed Dresden. It has moments of humour - but is that as bad as B&H? Were the pilots on that raid heroes (trying to end a war that slaughtered millions) or villains (dropping bombs on civilians to burn them alive).

I saw two of the actors on TV promoting the thing after the Grand Prix

To be honest, I found it unseemly.

If they were to argue that the film was intended to show the complicity of the university, the paradox between learning to do something good (ie being a doctor and saving lives) and using questionable means to get there (turning a blind eye to murder, even encouraging it) - that could be interesting

But nobody mentioned that, it was all simply "and then the serial killing starts... hahaha!"

Slaughterhouse Five is still a thoughtful piece of work.

This film seems to just be slapstick (from the way it has been advertised and the way it was being plugged this morning) - and thats the issue

I am not saying that it is impossible or always wrong to broach serious issues in ways that include humour

What I am saying I object to is this kind of "Carry On" approach to a story about a pair of serial killers.

Once upon a time I thought when Strange Famous posted something like this he was actually serious. I've become convinced, however, that it's all just one elaborate joke.

Burke and Hare did their thing almost 200 years ago. It's fair game now.

So when does it become fair game?

Would it be funny if it was about HH Holmes? Albert Fish? Richard Ramirez?

How long do the victims need to be dead before its funny to make a slapstick comedy about their victims deaths?

Actually its piss poor as well as dangerous to sensationalize serial killers by promoting their images as famous people into the public realm. We didnt have as many serious killers out on the loose before the media and marketers got ahold of the idea to promote them for capitalistic gain. They ARE a product and money can be made off of them. Once a dollar figure was put on them, their numbers exponentially multiplied. Not because we suddenly found the lost indigenous tribe of incestious killers. No, because we created them. We took people who with genetic potential and environmental conditions and societal probabilties, put ideas into their heads that might not have been put in their in the first place. You dont think so? Read up on them. Almost all of them say this when asked why they did it..."I wanted to be famous"

So...make the comic books. Make the Broadway plays. Create the music. Spin off stupid serial killler trading cards. Play board games based on them. Make the money these products bring in...

and forget about the victims rotting in their graves and the families who have to suffer silently in the shame and horror of what serial killer not only did to the victim but to them as well.The ripple effect without the extra ripples. The cause and the invisible effects.

Makes a helluva debate about right and wrong.

let me know what you agree upon...

200 years is long enough I think but this film looks really awful. Really trite and banal. If it was a clever and witty and ambitious black comedy - that made you think and maybe ended ambiguously - about Burke and Hare I wouldn't care, but the fact that it seems to go for cheap lazy laughs and aimed at the worst and most stupid sector of the public makes it distasteful. It's that wacky, pseudo-irreverent, but actually really safe, by the numbers, test-screened feel that's totally cynical and transparent by now. Makes me curious to see it to see if I'm right but really afraid to do that in case I am as it would not be worth it.

As the Man from Mars says, "they laugh because it hurts...because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting."

Essentially what he was saying was that just about everything we laugh at is bad. Jokes are made about death, tragedy, abuse, being dumb, the list goes on. Hell Hitler finds his way into many jokes on Family Guy. But we laugh at all these things because it helps us cope with them, because we really have no other way. Dwelling on the tragedy does not make it go away. This is a dark sad truth.

Also, since there isn't much of a description out for the movie, nor has anyone seen it yet, how can we really judge how awful it is that they are making a satire about it.

Thats somewhat a fair point.

But I do form a view from the way the film has been marketed.

And from the interview with actors from it, and the poster campaign it is being marketed as a slap stick "Carry On" style comedy.