The Doctor and The Devils is a 1985 gothic horror film directed by Freddie Francis and starring Timothy Dalton, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Rea, Julian Sands, Patrick Stewart and Twiggy.

[4] It is based upon the true story of Burke and Hare, who in 1828 Edinburgh, Scotland, murdered at least 16 people and sold their bodies for anatomical dissection.

Dr. Rock's young assistant Dr. Murray is given the task of buying the bodies, for which he is authorized to pay a small fortune, particularly for fresher corpses.

Meanwhile, Murray has begun to fall for beautiful local prostitute Jennie Bailey, who soon becomes the target of Fallon and Broom's murderous enterprise.

J. Arthur Rank had purchased the rights in 1956, before selling them to Nicholas Ray, who intended to direct with Maximilian Schell in the lead role.

[1] Borislav Mihajlović Mihiz and Gore Vidal were to rewrite Thomas' script, and filming was set to begin in Yugoslavia in September 1965.

[1] The film was officially cancelled in November after Warner Bros.-Seven Arts backed out of its "pre-production buy of worldwide distribution rights.

[1] Several of the cast and crew had previously worked together on The Elephant Man, including Francis, producers Brooks and Jonathan Sanger, composer John Morris, and actor W. Morgan Sheppard.

[5] Roger Ebert gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four, writing, "It is impossible to discover, on the evidence of "The Doctor and the Devils," why anybody connected with this movie thought it should be made.

It is unredeemed, dreary, boring, gloomy dreck unilluminated by even the slightest fugitive moment of inspiration or ambition," though he praised star Twiggy as the film's "only ray of sunshine.