A wax museum owner uses his horror exhibits to unleash evil on the world. "Waxwork" had a great premise and the FX/make-up is far above standard 80's horror. The exhibit scenes within the movie were awesome.
The cast was 80's cool with Zach Gilligan, Deborah Foreman, Michelle Johnson, Dana Ashbrook, Eric Brown, and Miles O'Keeffe.
But what were Johnson and Foreman thinking.. first both notice a Waxwork house appear in their neighborhood out of nowhere as they are walking to school..
..then suddenly a creepy guy in a purple suit that even Prince might question greets them... next, same scary dude invites both of these obviously underage high school girls plus four of their friends to a private midnight showing.
.. I will say the movie holds together and plays as a humor/horror flick. I really liked how the homage to "Night of the Living Dead" scenes were filmed in black & white.
As everyone knows.. I'm a huge fan of Deborah Foreman. While "Waxwork" is not at the top of my list .. her performance was quite interesting and definitely entertaining!
Here's a little trivia:
* Writer/director Anthony Hickox wrote the screenplay in only 3 days.
* Effects artist Bob Keen spent 18 hours a day for eight weeks working on the monsters in the film.
* During the scene in the basement of the vampire's mansion, crew on the sets said that it was "The bloodiest thing ever put to the screen". Much of the gore in the scene was cut by the MPAA.
* 18 wax horror exhibits are seen, including: - Count Dracula - The Phantom of the Opera - a witch - The Marquis De Sade - a werewolf - a mummy - a voodoo priest - zombies aka Night of the Living Dead - an urban legend killer (axe murderer) - The Invisible Man - Frankenstein's monster - Invasion of the Body Snatchers pod - a demonic baby from It's Alive - an alien creature - a "cobra-man" circus freak - Jack the Ripper - Mr. Hyde - and a Golem.
* After the policeman visits the Waxwork with Mark, he realizes that many of the statues of the victims resemble missing people from posters he had seen. These posters are actually just copies of one of the posters from the opening credits of the 1987 film 'The Lost Boys'. All of the missing person posters have a single photo of a missing adult, but the posters all have the same information of two missing children on the poster: William G. Bailey 7-26-62 Sandy blond hair brown eyes Missing since August 6, 1979 (or 1973) Call the Santa Carla Police Department Susan Wilbur 5-30-69 Black Hair Blue Eyes Missing since February 6, 1983
Any Waxwork or Waxwork II fans?
[ 10. May 2010, 19:55: Message edited by: Valley ]
Posted by Bamersy (Member # 8808) on :
Rented it back in the day-the Miles O'Keefe 'steak tartar' stayed with me. Picked this up not long ago:
Still holds up-though I haven't watched the sequel yet.
Posted by Veronica Sawyer (Member # 2221) on :
You read my mind Valley...I was thinking about making this thread too, but I'm glad I didn't because yours is full of trivia I didn't even know about.
I've always thought this was a cool movie. I like the idea of a waxwork museum full of horror scenes and Deb Foreman being the heroine just makes it that much better. I agree that the Night of the Living Dead sequence is the coolest. I always liked the vampire scenes too...I could never really get into the sequel though.
Posted by oneyedwilly (Member # 8730) on :
god, what a pick from the bottom of the box this is. I really liked this movie but only saw it once...reminds me of another film (australian called FX.with bryan brown. If you havnt seen it then i do recommend it. Not a horror at all. Very well done.
Posted by TheResurrection (Member # 2326) on :
I always confused this one with Society (because of the oozy covers).
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[ 26. May 2010, 08:31: Message edited by: TheResurrection ]
Posted by Pyromantic (Member # 7658) on :
i need to see the the second one again because I can't remember if I liked that one better than the first.
Posted by pettyfan (Member # 2260) on :
Waxwork was a movie I loved as a kid, but when I watched it once I was an adult it didn't have the same appeal. I never saw the second one though I always wanted to.
Posted by There'll be no morning for us (Member # 5804) on :
I really like Waxwork, love all the homages. The second one wasn't bad but a couple of the stories could drag just a little.
Posted by Valley (Member # 1322) on :
I really enjoy the first "Waxwork", but seldom watch the second movie. Zach Gilligan does his best to keep it entertaining, but without Foreman it just doesn't have the same appeal for me. Both movies have somewhat cheesy elements, but the second movie takes it to the extreme.
Posted by pork pie mcfly (Member # 6802) on :
Just watched Waxwork for the first time and I loved it, I'm a big fan of cheesy/comedy horror but never got round to ever seeing this movie until I saw this thread on here and bought it.
Deborah Foreman was great as ever.
Thanks Valley for the trivia.
Posted by aTomiK (Member # 6575) on :
Never seen Waxwork but i just found out that my brother has the R1 dvd. I need to pay him a visit.
I wonder why they didn´t release this one here back in the 80s...
Posted by Muffy Tepperman (Member # 1551) on :
Valley I just watched this today.....I like how it started out....cheesy with a bunch of teenagers.....the wax exhibits were really cool....I enjoyed the vampire story....well a few of them....yet it lost me a bit to a-d-d towards the end there....great cast though!
I got the dvd above with 1 and 2....I'll watch 2 and let you know what I think.
It keep reminding me of a movie where there is a carnival type setting and a horror house that's very similar and I know it might be really easy but it's escaping me at the moment.....anyone? anyone?
Posted by Valley (Member # 1322) on :
Funhouse?
Posted by Valley (Member # 1322) on :
Muffy.. I think the ending of "Waxwork" took it from being potentially a great movie to just a good movie overall. It was almost like they had this cool concept, but didn't quite know how to properly deal with it.
Posted by Muffy Tepperman (Member # 1551) on :
It isn't Funhouse because that bored the crap out of me....I watched the movie maybe a year ago on ondemand......it was a b horror movie but pretty known.....had a bunch of teenagers and could have been a lair of sorts and there might have been little demonic creatures in the exhibits.....it could have been Ghoulies 2 or something now it's gonna kill me....I remember a swinging blade??
Posted by Valley (Member # 1322) on :
Ghoulies 2 sounds correct
Posted by Muffy Tepperman (Member # 1551) on :
it was Ghoulies 2........I just looked up a trailor.........can you somehow see how i'd compare the two? haha
Posted by Crash (Member # 7484) on :
I thought that I read somewhere that "Waxwork" director Anthony Hickox was either married to or involved with Deborah Foreman at one time. And although that one scene--you know which one--is quite memorable (perhaps for reasons that we can't explore here), it always strikes me as really, really weird when directors involve their wives or signficant others in movie scenes involving nudity, torture, general abuse, etc., for example, Brian DePalma and Nancy Allen in everything they did together, David Lynch and Isabella Rosellini in "Blue Velvet," Paul Schrader and Nastassia Kinski in "Cat People," and Renny Harlin and Geena Davis in "The Long Kiss Goodnight." It makes me feel like a voyeur--and also makes me wonder what their home life is like!
Anyway, enough sermonizing. One more fun fact: director Hickox, who clearly has his heart in the right place writing and directing horror movies even when he doesn't quite pull them off like "Waxwork II," is the son of Douglas Hickox who directed Vincent Price to one of his best performances in the great horror film "Theatre of Blood" (1973). Horror films apparently run in the family.
