Burke & Hare (2010 film) Burke & Hare (2010 film) Burke & Hare is a 2010 British black comedy film, loosely based on the Burke and Hare murders. Directed by John Landis, the film stars Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis as William Burke and William Hare respectively. It was Landis's first feature film release in 12 years, the last being 1998's "Susan's Plan". The film was released in the United Kingdom on 29 October 2010. The film opens in Edinburgh. Narration by Angus the Hangman explains how the corpses of the hanged are transported to Dr Robert Knox for dissection. Knox's rival, Dr Alexander Monro,
Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom of Physicians the right to anatomise four felons annually in 1564. Several major hospitals and teaching centres were established in Britain during the 18th century, but with only a very few corpses legally available for dissection, these institutions suffered from severe shortages. Some local authorities had already attempted to alleviate the problem, with limited success; in 1694, Edinburgh allowed anatomists to dissect corpses "found dead in the streets, and the bodies of such as die violent deaths ... who shall have nobody to own them". Suicide victims were given over, as were infants who had died while being born and