First Review "Waxwork" 1988

                                                               
"Waxwork" is a hidden gem found in closet of Fearnet's archive of movies. It's actually really enjoyable and oddly shocking in at some parts. I will give you Fearnet's quick summary to start:

"There's a new wax museum in town. It's great. There are all these wax sculptures of really scary looking monsters and murderers. Some teenagers just went inside to take a look around. Funny thing is, they didn't come out."

Ok, so it sounds like a lot of horror movies where teens go in a haunted house and get killed, but it is not a typical horror movie in a lot of ways.

Zach Galligan, who you might remember as the kid from "Gremlins" who couldn't pay attention to directions, plays rich boy Mark who keeps striking out with the attractive China Webster, played by Michelle Johnson.

Zach Galligan as Mark in Waxwork

China and her friend Sarah, Deborah Foreman, are invited to a creepy wax museum along with four guests of their choosing. From there, they decide to bring along four of their friends, including Mark to the mysterious wax museum. One by one they find the wax figures are not as harmless as them seem to be. If you want to read the whole synopsis, read it on wikipedia here.

Sarah(left) and China(right)

I want to give you a couple reasons this movie is worth mentioning and definitely worth watching.

• It stereotypes every single character and yet manages to make them interesting.

China is the sexual one in the group, playing with Mark's heart
and playing the field. She is beautiful and unafraid, until the
wax museum gives her something to be afraid of. As the movie progresses, we find out the bad girl meets her seductive match.

Sarah is "The Virgin" through and through and isn't ashamed of it. Sarah experiences an awakening that makes anyone doubt her innocence, and their own. It is one of the movie's most shocking and yet enrapturing moment of pain and pleasure. It will bring out the freak in all of you.

Even Mark, the rebellious rich boy comes to find a purpose other than blowing off his schoolwork and chasing after China. The other characters serve more of a purpose of making the monsters look more interesting."Waxwork" does what modern movies fail to do over and over. It gives us the character labels and then surpasses them.

I have to say, the real stars of this movie would have to be the monsters and it gives credit and a soul to all of them.

• It has all classic horror figures at their best (or worst) and highlights what made them so very evil.

If there is something I want to thank the creators of this movie for, it would be paying homage to every horrific creature we can think of and making them enjoyable to watch.

The Vampire

Dracula, played by Miles O'Keeffe, is hard to resist and yet, in this part, the movie delivers one of the grossest scenes. Dracula is what you think of when you think vampire. He's dark, hard to resist, has evil vampires under him, a taste for human flesh, and his most lethal weapon are his hypnotizing eyes.

This part of the movie is interesting in how it makes you think how you would act if you were thrown into a Bram Stoker novel and whether you could escape. It also makes you wonder if you would want to.

The Werewolf 

 There werewolf scene has all the classic moments that you would think would be there. Our character is put in the middle of room with a werewolf and the middle of a hairy situation. I loved the change of the werewolf, a little reminiscent of the changing in the movie "An American Werewolf in London". The creature looked the part and was scary enough to pull it off. The scene full of screaming and gore, and yet, had some funny moments thrown in there. It was complete with hunters armed with silver bullets and the killing urge.


 Marquis de Sade is one of the most fascinating characters of the whole movie. He is an 18th century

French aristocrat whose sexual pleasures focus on pain and control. He is played by J. Kenneth Campbell, who is worth noting for such a thumbs up performance. He finds a new pet in Sarah, the little virgin, and from there, the audience becomes a little dumbfounded and oddly turned on. The actor played the character with a subtle sneer that was never too exaggerated and yet made him intriguing.

• It has fun.

The film never takes itself too seriously, with moments when the monsters are punched and just stare at their victims like "Nice try." It has a plot, complete with police officers searching for missing teenagers and the blood-sucking void that is the wax museum. We see monsters with a gentle side, but no problem with killing, a virgin with a taste for pain, and a hero trying to stop the evil wax museum. In this movie, you shouldn't try to ask too many questions, but just sit back and enjoy one of the more interesting movies. It will surprise you, which is hard to do nowadays, and if you like any horror monster, you will probably see them appear at least once. If the wax museum didn't kill people, I would totally go visit.

• Analysis

The movies is fun, yes, and it is great to watch. However, it does bring up a lot of ideas that are explored in each character. "Waxwork" highlights human being's strengths and also their weakness to temptation. It brings up the question, that faced with the most evil things in imagination, what would they bring out in you? Would it bring out a hero? Or a victim? Or maybe something a little evil hiding in you? The scenes I enjoyed watching the most were watching the characters fight temptation or give in to it. In a way, they were fighting something buried deep in themselves, and also unleashing something too.

I hope you catch this movie, because it is worth it.