Waxwork

Waxwork wants to be a lot of things. A horror movie about waxworks come to life and killing people. A morality tale about the dangers of succumbing to that which you most desire. A classic monster movie. An 80’s style horror comedy in the vein of Gremlins. It wants to be all these. What it is, though, is a jumbled mess that can’t maintain a tone and has to paper over the cracks with cliches. The problems start at frame #1, with the introduction of our cast: loathsome, unbearable, upper class WASPs who look down on everyone and everything that isn’t them. And, hey, they don’t even like each other! How enjoyable, rich assholes bickering with each other! A waxwork suddenly appears in their neighborhood, and I literally mean suddenly appears; the two girls who see it actually say “that came out of nowhere”. It’s never explained how it just shows up, which is another problem this movie has; it hates explanations. That’s fine when you’re making Halloween, where the premise is simple. But here, you have a waxwork run by a mysterious man who appears to be immortal; the exhibits are 18 of the worst people or creatures ever, and they need victims who believe in them to complete the exhibit, so the monsters will come to life. How does this work? Why does this work? How did he capture the essence of 18 monsters into wax form, but wasn’t able to bring them back to life without sacrifices that require a convoluted scheme? The movie does not have time for that. The closest you get is “black magic” and that 18 divided by 3 is 6, which means the number of the beast. Really. And let’s mention the monsters here. “18 of history’s worst”. So, a werewolf, an ancient vampire like Dracula, a mummy, zombies ... and the Marquis de Sade. Huh?!? Most of the monsters are literal movie monsters, and then you have a real historical figure. How does this make sense?!? But you shouldn’t go looking for consistency, because the movie can’t keep its own rules straight. The hero discovers that, if you don’t believe and didn’t willingly go into the illusions the exhibits generate, they can’t hurt you. But earlier in the movie, someone steps into an exhibit only to get the lighter that fell out of their hands. He doesn’t believe, so why is he killed? Hell, the first person to get trapped keeps denying what’s happening around him is real, so why is he killed?!? And later on, the wise old man the heroes visit for help say that this plan can only be stopped before the 18 are complete, and if they can’t, it’s the apocalypse. So guess when they stop all these monsters? AFTER THE 18 SACRIFICES ARE COMPLETE. And Dracula, who could only be killed in his exhibit with a cross to the head or wooden stake, gets his head blown off and is killed?!? And guess how it ends. Go on, guess. Here’s a hint: the wise old man helper says earlier that they have to destroy EVERYTHING in the waxwork, lest one monster get out and “infect the world” (whatever that means). Yup. From the smoking rubble of the waxwork, the detached hand of a waxwork dummy crawls away. A sequel-bait ending. Because they really thought, in 1988, they could franchise this. Add into this the terrible acting, cliche dialogue, cheap looking set pieces, the way the movie grinds to a halt when someone steps into an exhibit and spends 5-10 minutes in their before dying, and it’s just one dumb, confused mishmash of a movie. The only reason I’m giving it one star instead of a half is for one kill, where a werewolf rips a man in half starting at the skull (yes, he bifurcated the skull itself). The rest of the movie is awful.