Waxwork

Alternate titles : None

Tagline : "More Fun than a Barrel Full of Mummies"

A group of teens are invited to a special midnight opening of a new wax museum, that's just opened up in a small suburban neighbourhood. Welcomed inside by it's enigmatic curator (played by British actor David Warner) they find the sculptures are depictions from classic horror movies.

Unfortunately, when they go in for a closer look, the people in the group find themselves quite literally drawn into the very realistic scenarios as depicted in the museum and find themselves having to battle Werewolves, Vampires, Mummies, Zombies and various other characters from horror folklore.

Realising something isn't right, Mark (Zach Galligan) and his girlfriend Sarah (Deborah Foreman) decide to leave, but are concerned to find their friends are nowhere to be seen, and haven't returned home. The police prove to be no help, but realising something sinister is going on, as some of the new waxworks bear striking resemblances to their missing friends, Mark goes to see one of his grandfather's friends, Sir Wilfred (Patrick MacNee), an occult expert, who suspects that the waxworks are in fact real and their friends were offered as "sacrifices".

Heading back to the waxworks for some answers, Mark and Sarah soon find themselves having to battle all manner of horror characters, as the waxworks finally leave their exhibits and go on the rampage, just as the wheelchair bound Sir Wilfred, along with the other people from his group, burst into the waxworks to rescue them, leading to a hilarious final battle.

Filmed in a similar style to those old horror anthology films from the 60s/70s, but with each segment featuring the lead cast battling a classic movie monster this movie really was terrific fun. I will admit though, that when I first saw it on video back when I was 16 I didn't enjoy it as much, as I didn't get the humour or horror references, but now I'm older and a bit more seasoned I really love this film and can appreciate the humour.

If you love older horror movies, you'll love this extremely tongue in cheek homage, which also features a surprisingly good cast.

Overall Marks : 7/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• Alternate tag lines "Stop on by and give the afterlife a try", "You can step inside the hall of horrors, but dare you pay the price?".
• The missing persons posters shown on screen, when the cop realises some of the statues resemble the people in them, were actually copies of the posters used in the "The Lost Boys".
• The film's budget was $3.5million.
• Writer/Director Anthony Hickox wrote the script in only 3 days
• The Frankenstein monster was played by stuntman and horror veteran Kane Hodder, who played Jason in the later "Friday the 13th" sequels, Victor Crowley in "Hatchet" and starred in various other Horror movies.
• The zombie sequence had to be filmed in one night as they were filming in a state park and only had permission to film there for one night.
• Originally there were going to be waxworks of Jason from the "Friday the 13th" films, a group of children from "Village of the Damned" and a waxwork of "The Thing" but they had to change these for legal reasons.
• The cellar scenes during the Vampire Mansion segment were originally a lot bloodier, but much of this footage was cut by the US ratings board.
• The film was released on VHS in the US in both a cut R-rated version and a slightly bloodier unrated release. For its UK release, the distributors submitted the unrated print to the UK censors, but this was cut by 34s. The 2001 UK VHS release by Columbia was uncut, but the versions released to DVD in both the UK and US are both of the cut US R-rated version.

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