In the grim streets of 19th-century Edinburgh, two opportunistic Irish immigrants, William Burke and William Hare, discover a lucrative business in the murky world of body-snatching. Struggling to make ends meet, they stumble upon a scheme where fresh cadavers are sold to medical schools for a handsome price. When an elderly lodger at Hare's boarding house dies suddenly, the pair seizes the opportunity to sell the body to Dr. Knox, a local anatomist. Motivated by the substantial payout and increasingly desperate for money, Burke and Hare embark on a dark venture, preying on the city's most vulnerable residents to supply the insatiable demand for bodies.

As their morbid enterprise grows, so does their infamy, bringing them into contact with various unsavory characters in Edinburgh's underground. Their ruthless actions and escalating boldness begin to draw the attention of the local authorities, as well as inciting fear within their own community. With tensions rising and the net closing in on them, Burke and Hare struggle to maintain their grip on this macabre livelihood. Persistence in their grim trade tests their resolve and moral boundaries, sealing their fate as they venture further down a perilous path.