The Body Snatcher (film) - Plot

Plot

The year is 1871 in Edinburgh. A mother stands in mourning over her little son's grave, when a medical student, Donald Fettes, steps up to her and starts reassuring her that her son's body is safe and secure in its final resting place six feet under ground.

Not long after this, Mrs. Marsh visits the house of Dr. Toddy MacFarlane. She is seeking a cure for her daughter Georgina, who is paralyzed from the neck down. Dr. MacFarlane calls upon his student, Donald Fettes, to examine the poor girl to see what can be done. After the examination MacFarlane suggests surgery for the girl, but he claims that he cannot perform such an operation himself, since his teachings excludes his practice of medicine. Mrs. Marsh is devastated by this.

Later that night, Fettes confesses to the doctor that he is forced to give up his medicine studies because of lack of funds. The benevolent doctor offers Fettes a job as a lab assistant that very same night, because of an experiment he is about to perform. The doctor also confides to Fettes, that he is experimenting, performing dissections on dead bodies, and that not every body that is dissected by him or the students comes directly from the local morgue.

Fettes is woken up in the middle of the night by a loud pounding on the door. It is John Gray, a local taxi driver by day and grave robber by night, who has arrived to deliver another dead body to the doctor. It is the body of a young boy, newly buried at the cemetery.

The next day, when Fettes is out strolling in town near the cemetery, he sees the same mother in mourning that he met a few days ago, carrying the little boy's dead guard dog from the cemetery. He starts to feel remorse and get second thoughts about hs work as assistant to the doctor. Later that day he turns in his letter of resignation to MacFarlane, but the doctor refuses to accept it. The doctor claims that the experimenting on human specimens is utterly necessary for progress of the medical science.

That night, MacFarlane and Fettes goes to the local inn to meet with John Gray again. Gray starts taunting MacFarlane. Fettes brings up the case of Mrs. Marsh's daughter Georgina, and Gray mocks the doctor for not performing the surgery, saying he really hasn't got the skill to do it, and that it is the real reason for his refusal. Gray also gets as far as to threaten the doctor to expose his dark secret if he doesn't perform the surgery. The doctor finally gives in.

A while later, MacFarlane tries to get out if his promise to perform the surgery, claiming that he has no adequate spinal column to experiment on before. Fettes remedies this by paying Gray a visit, asking him to get another human specimen for the doctor. On the way to Gray, Fettes leaves a coin to a street singer he passes, and is shocked when Gray comes back to the doctor's lab with a dead body looking just like the singer Fettes passed earlier.

The next morning, Fettes shows MacFarlane the body and accuses Gray of murder. The conversation is overheard by Joseph, the doctor's other assistant. MacFarlane tells Fettes that he indeed could be arrested as an accomplice, and advises him not to notify the police. On the day of Georgina's surgery, Meg Cameron, MacFarlane's housekeeper and secret wife, comforts Mrs. Marsh through the agonizing procedure.

Little Georgina's incision heals very well, but she is still unable to walk, and MacFarlane, tortured by his failure, goes to the inn to console himself with drink. Gray finds him there and begins to torment the doctor, mentioning their dark cooperations in the past. When the doctor returns to his stable that night, Joseph pays a visit to Gray, and blackmails him, demanding money in exchange for his silence about the illegal activities he and the doctor has been up to.

Gray tells Joseph a story of Burke and Hare, two infamous murderers who were hanged for procuring bodies for Dr. Knox, MacFarlane's mentor and predecessor. When Gray is finished telling his tale, he lunges forward and suffocates Joseph. Later he delivers the body to MacFarlane's lab as a "gift." As MacFarlane angrily goes to confront Gray, Meg recalls the trial of Burke and Hare in which Gray admitted to robbing graves to shield the real perpetrator, MacFarlane.

Meg warns Fettes, and tells him to leave town immediately before he becomes another MacFarlane. The doctor, who has gone to visit Gray, offers the grave robber money to leave him alone and stop tormenting him. Gray refuses to take the money, and vows to the doctor that he will never be rid of him as long as he lives. MacFarlane attacks Gray and the two men struggle. The doctor manages to beat Gray to death.

In the morning, Fettes goes to see Mrs. marsh and Georgina by the old city wall. Just as Fettes confesses his disillusionment to Mrs. Marsh, there is a sound of hoofbeats nearby. The girl stands to try and see the horses, thus proving that the operation indeed was a success after all. Fettes rushes over to the doctor's house to tell him the good news, but he only finds Meg, telling him that the doctor as left to sell Gray's horse and carriage in another, neighboring town.

Fettes goes to the neighboring town and finds MacFarlane at the local tavern. The doctor informs Fettes of his plans, to dig up and rob a freshly dug grave. Fettes sees no other alternative than to join the doctor, and duribg a terrible storm that night, they execute the plan. They unearth a coffin and loads the covered body onto Gray's carriage.

When they drive away through the night, MacFarlane believes he hears the voice of Gray from the back of the carriage, calling for him. He stops the carriage and orders Fettes to go back to check the body. When he uncovers the body and shines a light on it, MacFarlane believes he indeed is looking at Gray's corpse. At the same moment the horses are spooked by the storm and run away. The carriage, with MacFarlane and the body go over a cliff, plunging down into the abyss. Fettes looks down at the wreck, and sees the dead body of MacFarlane. Next to him lies the corpse of a woman.