I saw this film as a support for a main feature in 1982. It is an unusual film but intriguing and quite enjoyable. Filmed on location in Cumbria in North-West England, it conveys a convincing atmosphere of cold and desolation in the opening scenes where a peddler is making his way along rough paths in the the mountains.
The plot is fairly straightforward: three companions of an executed criminal have sworn to recover his body and bury it in a churchyard so his soul can go to Heaven. In flashback we see the crime for which he was executed - the rape of a farm-girl in a barn. By night the old friends cut down his corpse from a gibbet, remove the bones of a bishop from his tomb (taking care to re-bury them within the churchyard boundary) and replace them with the remains of their friend. In the finale we hear the criminal sigh as his soul is released.
Thus we get a strange mixture of 18th Century sociology, religion, superstition and Romanticism. An unusual blend, but one that makes a lasting impression, with good use of locations.
The plot is fairly straightforward: three companions of an executed criminal have sworn to recover his body and bury it in a churchyard so his soul can go to Heaven. In flashback we see the crime for which he was executed - the rape of a farm-girl in a barn. By night the old friends cut down his corpse from a gibbet, remove the bones of a bishop from his tomb (taking care to re-bury them within the churchyard boundary) and replace them with the remains of their friend. In the finale we hear the criminal sigh as his soul is released.
Thus we get a strange mixture of 18th Century sociology, religion, superstition and Romanticism. An unusual blend, but one that makes a lasting impression, with good use of locations.
