The Flesh and the Fiends (US title Mania; also known as The Fielndish Ghouls and Psycho Killers) is a 1960 British horror film directed by John Gilling and starring Peter Cushing, June Laverick and Donald Pleasence.

Though he is constantly at odds with his stuffy, backwards colleagues, he is highly venerated by his students and believes his duty is to push the medical profession forward.

Unfortunately, due to the laws of the time very few cadavers are legally available to the medical profession, necessitating the use of graverobbers or "Resurrection men" to procure additional specimens.

Dr. Knox's assistant Dr. Mitchell and a young student named Jackson are given the task of buying the bodies, which are worth a small fortune... especially when fresh.

Knox, for his part in the killings, is the object of widespread public outrage, but ultimately not punished or censured by his colleagues (to whom Dr. Mitchell eloquently defends him).

Though he is free to continue lecturing, he ultimately feels guilt over his part in the horrors, admitting to his devoted niece Martha that the murder victims "seemed so small in my scheme of things.

However, the filmmakers were still not permitted to use Burke and Hare's name in the title, and chief censor John Trevelyan called Baker to his office to discuss his concerns about several "potentially offensive sequences," though the film was ultimately passed uncut with an "X" rating.

The more rhetorical medical school sections are inevitably overshadowed by the brisk gruesomeness of the many murder scenes, though there is little effort to build tension in these, and the studio sets fail to capture the grim atmosphere pervading many of Edinburgh's closes even today.

Peter Cushing offers his usual polished performance, but the Oirish dialogue given to George Rose and Donald Pleasence makes them more comic than sinister.

Reviewing the 2001 DVD release by Image Entertainment, critic Glenn Erickson praised the acting as "first rate," and added, "The production values of The Flesh and the Fiends outshine the House of Hammer....