Not even bad in a good way

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

lots of carnage in the camera and on docs floor. sad about Bela. carnage pure carnage these guys sure are picky about their reviews so i would take all of this with a grain of salt. its pure pornography given that it is val lewton. send your kids to school and teach your parents well.

There must have been a cottage industry in nineteenth century London, that of delivering dead bodies to medical schools and researchers for dissection or exploration. This was fine if a family had an agreement with the deceased or the deceased's family to take the newly dead body to the recipient. Of course, if your livelihood depended on finding these corpses and bringing them in, and the supply ran out, well, grab your hammer, wait in the dark for some poor victim, and, voila! The problem, of course, is that this business with the hammer is highly illegal. So here we have the foundation for this movie. This is a highly atmospheric film with outstanding performances, especially that by Boris Karloff. It is in glorious blacks don white which adds to the total effect. There is one maudlin event, but it doesn't detract too much.

Attempting to teach anatomy, a doctor and his idealistic protegee's search for a cure to a patient lead them into contact with a brutish graverobber who holds a deadly secret over him and tries to continue holding it over him as they try to find a way of continuing their lectures.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 to 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 much of these scenes here building up to to the final are dependent on him acting rather than doing anything of any horror significance. All told these here 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.Today's Rating/PG: Mild Violence.

In 1831, in Edinburgh, the prominent doctor and professor Dr. Wolfe 'Toddy' MacFarlane (Henry Daniell) buys corpses for his studies and classes of anatomy from the notorious cabman John Gray (Boris Karloff), who is also a body snatcher. When his talented student Donald Fettes (Russell Wade) tells that he will quit medical school since his family cannot afford to support him, MacFarlane hires him as his assistant to permit Fettes to proceed his studies. Fettes meets a little girl that cannot walk anymore due to a coach accident, and he tries to convince Dr. MacFarlane to operate her but the doctor is reluctant. Soon Fettes discovers that Dr. MacFarlane has a secret from his past and Gray blackmails him. When Fettes learns how Gray obtains the corpses for Dr. MacFarlane, he has an inner conflict and does not want to continue as Dr. MacFarlane's protégée. But isn't it too late?"The Body Snatcher" is a dark and gloomy horror tale with a creepy story about ethic in medicine, or how far a doctor should go in his researches. Boris Karloff has a magnificent performance, maybe the best I have ever seen of this actor. The direction of Robert Wise is sharp and the cinematography in black and white is impressive. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Túmulo Vazio" ("The Empty Grave")