The Body Snatcher (1945) by Robert Wise

Director: Robert Wise

Year: 1945

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Plot:

Attempting to teach anatomy, a doctor and his idealistic protege search for a cure for a patient lead them into contact with a brutish graverobber who holds a deadly secret over him and tries to continue holding it over them as they try to find a way of continuing their lectures.

Review:

This here was quite the disappointing and rather overrated effort. What really holds this one down is the fact that there's just so little time spent here on the actual horror that there's just not a lot of interest to be had here for long stretches of time. The beginning of this one plays off like an utterly banal medical ethics drama where the child's case gives them the impetus to start bucking the established medical doctrines of the time by wanting more specimens against the wishes of their superiors, which leads to numerous amounts of philosophical debates to be had about the kind of people they want to be associated with doing this. This isn't horrific and really has little to no interesting elements about it as they go off on endless discussions not only about that but also the quandaries of the benefits of helping the girl which both of these together simply add so much time to the film doing absolutely nothing of interest here that there's really so much time spent on the non-horror elements here that it's sometimes hard to see it as one.

It's not really helped by the fact that so many of these scenes here, building up to the final, are dependent on him acting rather than doing anything of any horror significance. All told these here turn this one into such a bland and languid pace that the film is so drab and dull that it renders the film so lifeless that there's little that can be done to fix this, though the film comes admirably close with the final half which features the film's few attempts at action here where he goes out stalking the streets for corpses and manage to begin brawling with the others who attempt to confront him and these actions. The mind-games he plays against them are quite fun at times, with the fact that they're somewhat demented and cruel, which makes the final fight and the psychologically-chilling finale coming back into town being the film's best and only worthwhile moments. Even still, the fact that these here are highly psychological rather than being based on action is what really undoes this one by not being all that interesting as the very nature for tormenting him for his nicknames is quite a ridiculous manner for the tormenting and it's long past the point of caring once they reveal the truth about the relationship with the backstory that ties them together. Overall, it's way too flawed to really be considered much of a classic.

Overview: **/5

A little flawed but acceptable for what it is, this becomes a decent enough, if ultimately underwhelming, fringe genre effort that has enough to be compelling at times, even with the series of issues holding it back. Those with an interest in this era of genre fare or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, as most others out there should heed caution.