WAXWORK (1988) HALLOWEEN MOVIE

WAXWORK (1988) – I’m often surprised at how comparatively overlooked Waxwork is when it comes to 1980s horror films. It’s played straight, packs in a variety of menaces, fun Easter Eggs and sufficient scares and gore for that decade of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Pinhead. A sequel followed in 1992.

The cast includes Zach Galligan, Deborah Foreman, David Warner, Michelle Johnson, Clare Carey, Eric Brown, Dana Ashbrook, John Rhys-Davies, Patrick Macnee and Miles O’Keefe. As the title indicates, this movie involves a wax museum with deadly exhibits, but far more elaborate ones than similar films feature.

Virtually overnight, a nearly completed Wax Museum appears in a midwestern town. It’s still being prepared and won’t officially open for a few weeks, but David Lincoln, the smooth-talking owner played by the great David Warner, offers several curious teens special free passes to a preview the next night.

The teens are classmates and are the usual one-dimensional victim fodder for 80s horror films. The recognizable faces make them pleasant enough and naturally Zach Galligan and Deborah Foreman, as the leads, get more character development than the rest of the cast.

The night of the “preview” our characters show up at the Lincoln Wax Museum and are welcomed in by a sinister dwarf called Hans (Mihaly “Michu” Meszaos). Between him and the obviously suspect owner the teens should have fled immediately, but you know how horror movies go.

Where Waxwork stands out from so many previous House of Wax flicks soon becomes obvious. When our lunkheaded teens disobey the repeated warnings not to step over the velvet ropes cordoning off each exhibit they are sucked into an entirely separate environment.

Like being inside the Doctor’s TARDIS the displays once stepped into cover an enormous area. Each teen that enters becomes trapped and faces suddenly mobile and much more realistic versions of the wax monsters involved.     

Violent and bloody tableaus unfold like individual horror shorts as our cast is whittled down very stylishly. John Rhys-Davies plays a werewolf, and Miles O’Keefe plays Dracula if you were wondering how those actors figured into the proceedings.

Other menaces faced once crossing the velvet ropes include Egyptian mummies, a unique alien monster, the Marquis de Sade, zombies, the Phantom of the Opera, a mutant baby, the Frankenstein Monster (Kane Hodder) and more.

SPOILERS:

As the movie goes on, we learn that this wax museum materializes at various times over the decades. In fact, the grandfather of Zach Galligan’s character was killed by David Warner, who is always the Waxwork Man. 

David Lincoln (Warner) has been collecting dead victims at each materialization, and this time hopes to complete the number needed to allow the dark forces behind the museum’s exhibits to break free and rampage in the world at large.   

Several of the teens and even a town cop get killed during the movie and the characters you’d expect to survive do so. Galligan returned for the sequel.

For what it’s worth, I recommend this film for at least one viewing if you’re a horror fan. 

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