Review #97: Waxwork (1988)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Anthony Hickox (Director): Waxwork 2, Hellraiser 3 (1992), Warlock (1993)

Zack Galligan (Mark): Gremlins

Deborah Foreman (Sarah): April Fool's Day, Real Genius (1985)

Dana Ashbrook (Tony): Return of the Living Dead 2 (1988)

John Rhys-Davies (Werewolf): The Ferryman

Clare Carey (Gemma): Home Alone 4 (2002), Crocidile Dundee in L.A. (2001), Coach T.V. series
Patrick Macnee (Sir Wilfred): Waxwork 2, The Howling

David Warner (David): The Omen (1976), Star Trek 5 (1989) & 6 (1991), Scream 2

Trailer:


Plot:

The evil haunted wax museum keeper, David Lincoln invites Sarah and China (isn't that a steriod-using chick wrestler?) to a midnight screening of his wax exhibits. They agree, and he tells them to bring no more than six people.

So they invite their rich friend, the dude from Gremlins (Zach G...aka...Mark) and a couple other friends to the tour. Before the tour two friends chicken out and bolt, leaving Mark, Tony, Sarah and China to tour themselves. Once they start the tour they quickly get divided up and tour the wax museum alone at their own pace.

Tony drops his lighter over a werewolf exhibits red rope barrier. He proceeds over the rope to pick it up, and once he crosses, he gets sucked into the exhibit real life reenactment.

Tony thinks that he is either hypnotized or somebody slipped him acid because he can't believe whats going on. He plays along and enters a cabin. Inside the cabin, Tony meets Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) who then warns him to stay away and then transforms into a werewolf before his eyes. Gimli the werewolf bites Tony as some townsfolk comes in and kills the werewolf with silver bullets and then shoots Tony as he transforms himself. Tony dies in the exhibit and becomes a "wax piece" to the exhibit.

The same thing happens to China as she crosses the line at a Count Dracula exhibit. Puzzled by their friends disappearance, Sarah and Mark leave the waxwork show. The next day, their friends are still missing, and Mark decides to go to the police to report what he believes.

Mark learns from a detective that 13 other people have gone missing in the last two weeks. The plot thickens! Mark blames the wax museum for the disappearances, but the police are skeptical. The detective decides to take Mark to the wax museum to check it out and prove him wrong. The caretaker, David, lets the detective tour the wax exhibits by himself. The detective finds nothing wrong, calls it quits and leaves with Mark.

Mark returns home disappointed and does a little "attic research" with Sarah (Deborah Foreman pictured right). Attic research is when the movie can't explain how the evil plan works, so they use the "my grandfather saved newspaper clippings from back in the day" to piece together the mystery.

While Mark and Sarah does their own investigation, the detective at the police station has flashbacks of faces of missing persons and their faces as wax figures in the museum. The detective decides to check the wax house out one more time...just to make sure. Because we don't want the police not putting 100% effort into their investigations.

Mark and Sarah has learned that a town local named, Sir Wilfred was mysteriously involved and they go to pay him a visit. At Sir Wilfred's house they learn that the waxwork is a deal between David Lincoln and Satan to achieve people's souls in exchange for immortality. Yep. It's a deal with Satan type of show.

Once David has collected 18 souls, one for each wax exhibit, Satan is free, or some crap like that. End of the world bull sh*t. The only way to stop the plan is to burn down the house, specifically the remaining exhibits. Back at the waxwork, the detective and his partner comes to the end of their lives.

Mark and Sarah return to the waxwork to carry out the "good work" and burn the place down to a crisp. Unfortunately, they are both pushed into different exhibits by David's evil henchmen. Inside his exhibit, a zombie exhibit, Mark learns that, "the figures can't hurt him if he doesn't believe in them". He escapes and enters Sarah's exhibit to save her.

The 18 Wax Exhibits:
1. Count Dracula
2. The Mummy
3. Frankenstein
4. A Witch
5. A werewolf - Gimli!
6. Jack the Ripper
7. The Marquis De Sade
8. Phantom of the Opera
9. A voodoo priest
10. A zombie
11. The Invisible Man
12. Mr. Hyde
13. A pod from the Invasion of the Body Snatchers
14. Demonic baby from It's Alive
15. An alien creature
16. The cobra man circus freak
17. An axe murder
18. A golem

You gotta love the 80's and it's cheesy imagination in story telling. Is Waxwork a scary horror movie? Maybe when I was eight, but now that I've gone back to watch it, I see it as a funny, cheesy horror movie. The characters, at least the "teens" in the movie are laughable. Come on', Zack G. portraying a high schooler? This is three years after Gremlins came out. All the other "teens" are the same way, ten years after their prime.

Kind of a joke, but the characters who weren't teenagers, they were pretty solid. They're all character actors which you've seen their faces some where, but couldn't put your finger on it. The main evil guy, David Warner (David L.) stole the show in my opinion. He's a classic eerie strange tall guy that was a good fit for the role. Warner didn't have too much to work with, but overall it panned out.

The second evil guy, The Marquis De Sade, reminded me of some dude who I've seen on plenty of late nite Skin-e-max shows. Bookie knows what guy I'm talking about. The guy who was the caveman guy from that one. Also played a male genie in another. I need to get out more.

The special effects on the film were pretty top notch for an 80's flick. They did a good job on using that blue waterdrop thing when people passed from the real world into the exhibit world. Outside of a couple of bad looking head popping scenes, the overall effects were good.

The wax figures didn't look all that too impressive though. Such a shame for a movie that is called Waxwork and that is the film bread and butter. The film used blood, and used it well. I didn't think there was a too over the top usage, and for the most part the blood looked real.

If you're expecting to see some TNA then move along. Outside a couple of hot chicks (Shark Factor) and a weird chained/whipping scene, there wasn't much there. No token twin shots. Boo!

The movie itself was more of a comedy, because it seemed like it didn't take itself seriously. Over the top goofiness, bad one liners, and random crap that just spelled out AWESOME. Waxwork is definitely a classic to check out. By today's standards of a horror movie, it just wouldn't cut it, but it's one of those head scratchers you just can't pass on. The chick below also starred another wax movie...the always lovely...Elisha Cuthbert (pictured below).


Misc. Movie Trivia:
-Film opened on June 17, 1988
-Missing photos at the beginning of the film are the same ones used as The Lost Tribe