WAXWORK: Day 1 of 31

To kick off my long-awaited (by me, not really anyone else) horror movie-a-day through the month of October, I selected a movie I remember watching frequently as a kid. And like most movies from childhood, you always tend to remember them as being much better than they are in actuality.

Waxwork is no exception.

However, it's not a bad movie.  In fact, a lot of it's faults are fairly intentional, as it wears it's B-movie heart on it's sleeve proudly.  It's definitely a tongue-in-the-cheek throwback to the horror genre, containing pretty much everything under the sun.




The plot goes like this:  A group of college kids are invited to a late-night showing at a mysterious Wax Museum.  Just how mysterious?  Well, when two of the female characters are walking to school, chatting about boys in traditional horror movie fashion (it's even filmed in one long take, which I'm guessing was a nod to that scene in Halloween), they stumble across a "creepy old Waxwork" that apparently materialized out of nowhere.  Then, to make it even more mysterious, the owner of the Waxwork suddenly appears, also apparently materializing out of nowhere, and dressed like Willy Wonka for some reason.  It's a funny scene because the girls are looking at the building, then when it cuts to a new angle, the owner is suddenly just there.  Like they just didn't notice him standing right beside them.  The owner, or "Waxwork Man," as he is listed in the credits, is played by the always great, and always sinister, David Warner.  I don't know him by name, but he's definitely "one of those guys" that you always see in movies.  He's popped up in The Omen, Titanic, Tron, Twin Peaks, etc, so he's got a pretty thick filmography.  Trust me, you've seen him before.  And he's always evil.  Or at least a little slimy.

Anyway, he invites the girls to the Waxwork (for some reason, they constantly call the Wax Museum a "Waxwork." I would think most people would refer to it as a Wax Museum. It's just the common phrasing. They were obviously trying to get the mileage out of the title I guess). The girls invite their friends, which are all just a punch of scumbag college pukes who don't seem to get along or even particularly like each other, so it makes you wonder why they're hanging out in the first place.  Probably because no one else can stand them.  Oh well, off to the Wax Mus-ahem- Waxwork.

At the building, they're greeted by the creepiest midget I've ever seen, along with an equally creepy giant butler with the mind of a child.  They direct them to the gallery, where they encounter wax figures of over a dozen famous horror icons.  Wolf Man, Dracula, Invisible Man, etc.  They focus on some classics, but they even throw in some shout outs to other great genre monsters; I caught The Thing, Pod people, Phantom of the Opera, and a couple others. Obviously, a love letter to the genre.  I read online that they originally wanted to have Jason Vorhees from the Friday the 13th films included as well, but due to rights issues, they couldn't do it.  That sparked an interesting idea in my mind, because while I'm not a huge supporter of remakes, I think this would be a cool formula to revisit in future movies.  They could really focus on the more current slasher villains, like Jason, Freddy, Pinhead, etc.  Obviously, they couldn't do the actual characters, unless they got permissions from all the studios, but they could at least create a cool facsimile of the icons. Although, upon further thought, I guess that was pretty close to what Cabin in the Woods did.  Only much better.  So maybe my point is moot.


Anyway, the kids are perusing the Museum, and kids being kids, they start wandering into the Wax tableaus, which transport them into the scene that is being enacted.  The first punk asshole winds up in the woods, where he runs into a grizzly lumberjack seconds away from turning into a werewolf.  The kid immediately questions how he got from the Wax Mus- Waxwork to the middle of the forest, but quickly decides it had to be hypnotism.  Yeah, hypnotism.  That's the only logical answer.  The hypnotism kicks in really bad when he gets bit by the werewolf and chased around the cabin. It's funny because a lot of this scene is done from the werewolf's Point of View, and it reminded me of that Saturday Night Live skit where Christopher Walken plays that pervy romance-guy, trying to seduce the woman in his apartment.

As the story goes on, it feels the need to explain how the "Waxwork Man" is able to bring his sculptures to life, and the remaining kids go on an investigative search to track down what is really going on.  Turns out, it has to do with a deal with the devil, and the evil owner's obligation to release 18 souls from hell to wreak havoc on the earth, by supplying the Wax sculptures with human victims, which gives them power. Or something.  That part of the movie is unimportant.  We don't really care why the Waxworks are coming to life, we just want to see people getting killed by famous monsters.

The Dracula segment is pretty good too, and a majority of the time is spent in a basement where this poor bastard is chained to a table where the vampires have been nibbling his leg down to the bone as if it was corn on the cob.  It gets almost ludicrous with how many things happen to his leg after that.  A rat starts chewing on it, then a vampire tears off a hunk and eats it.  Then I think they stick a knife in it.  And then the damn vampire just leans over, right on top of it, trying to grab a girl on the other side of the table.  The poor guy.  I expected a piano to land on it or it to just simply start on fire by the end of the scene.

By the end of the movie, all the creatures claim a victim, which allows them to come to life and start tearing shit up.  However, a secret society of old timers kick in the door, ready to take them on in battle.  I guess they've been waiting for this moment... for a while?  Who knows.  What follows is a really poorly choreographed fight scene with a couple stand out moments, along with some of the sloppiest editing I've ever seen.  Just really shitty. Then the muse-Waxwork burns down and we're treated to the most jarring end credits to a horror movie- blaring the song "It's My Party (And I'll Cry if I Want To).  Strange artistic choice.

So, is it a good movie?  No. Not really.  I got a kick out of it as a kid, and watched the hell out of it with all my friends though. And the throwback feel of it makes it a perfect candidate for Halloween viewing, just as long as you know what you're getting into.

A couple stand out moments:

-Vampire woman getting impaled on wine bottles in the wine cellar.

-Asshole detective who constantly disregards everything the main characters say to him

-The main characters strange obsession with Caffine.  "But mom, I need the caffine. Badly."  And even stranger, his mom's refusal to let him drink coffee, because he's not a big boy yet.  And he's in college.  Luckily, his butler, Jenkins (of course) supplies him with his "caffine, his nicotine, and his wheels."  And that's how they refer to them.  Like they thought saying coffee or cigarettes would be too close to product placement, so they went the bare minimum approach to referring to these things.

-Opening sequence where a guy gets his face pushed into a fire place. While lit.  Nasty way to go.

-Vampire goes to bite the girl and she ducks, causing him to bite the neck of a marble bust.  Ouch. That hurts my teeth just watching.  No wonder he wanted her dead after that.

-The decision to include the Marquis deSade as the primary Waxwork villain.  Odd choice, considering deSade was just a French writer with a penchant for immoral literature.  I guess the term "sadist" was coined from his name, so having him whipping girls in a lust-filled torture chamber is kind of fitting.  Points for originality I suppose.

-The decision to make the mousy, bookworm girl secretly turned on by the writings of the Marquis deSade, even so much as her practically fondling herself in an attic when she comes across a book of his writings.  Okay, now I see why they included him.

-The black and white zombie sequence.  Very cool.  And a severed zombie hand that brings to mind better movies, like Evil Dead 2.

-"Would you like a closer look?"  This is what the Waxwork man says to his victims before he pushes them into the tableau.  He tries it with the Detective, who catches himself before he falls in, then brushes himself off and says, "No, I'm good,"  and walks away.  Nothing suspicious about that.  God, this guys a terrible police man.  I'm glad he gets sealed in a sarcophagus by a head-stomping Mummy.

Overall, not a bad way to kick of a horror marathon.  It's always cool to see famous monsters together in one movie, and even though this is far from perfect, it's pretty enjoyable, with a healthy dose of gore and great make up effects.  It's a movie to enjoy with friends, and you can spend most of the night making fun of it as it goes.  There was a sequel made a couple years after called "Waxwork 2: Trapped in Time" or something like that.  I only saw it once, and it was slightly better than expected.  They even manage to have a really funny Bruce Campbell cameo with reference to the old black and white The Haunting movie.  Worth a watch if you've made it through this one.  If not, hey, let's see what else is on.