A little more of an obscure offering for Horror Month 2021. What? You've never wanted to see Billy from Gremlins take on Chancellor Gorkon?
. . .no?
. . .just me?
. . .well, you're getting it.
Waxwork is actually a comedy horror film. Partially inspired by the 1924 German silent film Waxwork, the name and the horror elements seem to be the only things that these two have in common. The director is Anthony Hickox, who would go on to direct Waxwork II: Lost in Time...
. . .oh, god, not again! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
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| "NO! WE WON'T GO BACK!!!" |
. . .sorry, my producers forgot to give me my medication. Now, where was I? Oh, right. Hickox's films.
He also directed Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth. So you know we are in the company of true cinematic excellence!
I'd love to tell you more, but those are about the only two notable things he directed unless you count the pilot episode of Just Shoot Me.
So, like any good horror movie, we get our first murder out of the way before the opening credits start to roll. In this case, a man gets burned to death in his own fireplace as an obscured individual steals valuables from his house.
And all of this in just over one minute! That's speed right there!
We get introduced to Mark Loftmore (Zach Galligan), a presumably typical late 1980's rich kid who despises his upbringing and his cavalcade of friends - China (Michelle Johnson), Sarah (Deborah Foreman), Gemma (Clare Carey), James (Eric Brown), and Tony (Dana Ashbrook). They get invited to a private showing at a waxwork museum run by one Mr. David Lincoln (David Warner). He is holding the engagement at midnight, but requests that there be no more than six.
Lucky for him, that's the exact number of people that they know!
I was going to make some jokes about the vapid and swallow nature of teenagers/young adults in pretty much any decade but no more so than the 1980's, but Waxwork actually does a lot of work toward giving us some character in the Aliens and Predator traditions.
Also, Mark's college professor gives him two essays for being late for class and talking in class. This kind of skips over the fact that Mark's college professor knows or cares enough to actually know his name.
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| Mark's lack of coffee is gonna be the least of his problems... |
Just saying. It's a really rare thing. Put in the time, Mark! I mean, the guy has a weird obsession with dictators (in particular Hitler), but c'mon! Give and take.
Regardless, the six young adults go to this showing they were invited to by a creepy man who suddenly appeared outside the waxwork museum. I'd critique this, but having been a college student in a college town...there's almost nothing to do in college towns, so party with Chancellor Gorkon at the Satanic Museum of Wax it is. Greeted by a dwarf butler named Hans (Mihaly 'Michu' Meszaros), they begin their descent into madness...and so, so much more.
You see, by crossing the ropes that cordon off the vignettes, they find that the set pieces are very much real places and very, very much hostile...and that they aren't quite themselves in this new place.
What follows is an almost one hundred minute romp with some spectacular practical effects work even by the standards of today (in particular the parade of the "18 most evil souls ever" near the climax), some good humor where appropriate (which not completely undercutting the horror), and some solid performances throughout (David Warner, in particular, gives a fantastic performance as he does everything he's in). There's just enough time in the beginning to set up the dynamics of the group (mostly) so that we actually do care about the people involved when the bodies start dropping (though I would have personally liked a little more time, but Waxwork outshines pretty much all of modern horror for even attempting to make us care).
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| Even in films that are awful, David Warner is awesome. And this film isn't awful. |
If I did have to criticize one thing about the movie, it is the pacing unfortunately. I do wish we had gotten everything with a little more time to breathe. It is a quick rush through the first twenty minutes or so with very good effects and set design within the vignettes. After that, we have another twenty minutes or so of our main characters (as well as a few ancillary characters) catching up with where we, the audience, already are.
Yes, that's what would happen in real life, but it isn't particularly interesting to watch. It could be interesting but (beyond Mark's family having had some past involvement with David Lincoln - spoiler alert) there really isn't anything the film does to make it interesting.
What the film does do well is build up a pretty interesting mythology that blends Haitan voodoo, Christianity, and Pagan traditions in a...really rather bizarre, but interesting way. Lincoln is apparently doing what he does at the behest of the Devil, having made a pact with Old Scratch, but his work is described as voodoo and black magic and it all comes across like a hodgepodge of concepts that the writer - also Anthony Hickox - found interesting.
It kind of reminds me of how Egg Shen and Uncle Chu describe Chinese mysticism in Big Trouble in Little China - "we take what we want and leave the rest."
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| "OH MY GOD! IT'S ROBERT LOGGIA!" |
That said, Waxwork is definitely not a bad movie. It takes itself just seriously enough while still remembering to make light where appropriate, it's got a pretty solid cast and no particularly underwhelming or hammy performances through it, and a full ensemble of cross-references to everything from George A. Romero's zombie movies to Little Shop of Horrors to even the Marquis de Sade. Plus, it has an epic final battle, and I think we all know my feelings about combat wheelchairs by now.
It's a good story, well told, and it luckily has no need for a cliffhanger ending that leaves a sequel ope-why is that zombie hand scuttling away from the burning wax museum?
. . .aww, man...
Next time, it's time to head back to Haddonfield for a film that takes itself far, far more seriously than it deserves. Which film, you ask?
Be ready to trick or treat...motherfucker.
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