Waxwork (1988 film)
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| Waxwork | |
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 Promotional movie poster for Waxwork |
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| Directed by | Anthony Hickox |
| Produced by | Staffan Ahrenberg |
| Written by | Anthony Hickox |
| Starring | Zach Galligan Deborah Foreman Michelle Johnson |
| Music by | Roger Bellon |
| Cinematography | Gerry Lively |
| Editing by | Christopher Cibelli |
| Release date(s) | June 17, 1988 |
| Running time | 95 min. (R-rated) 100 min. (unrated) |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Followed by | Waxwork II: Lost in Time |
| IMDb profile | |
Waxwork is a 1988 horror/comedy film starring Zach Galligan and Deborah Foreman.
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[edit] Plot synopsis
In a small suburban town a waxwork appears, seemingly overnight. The owner invites two college students, Sarah and China, to attend that night with four more guests of their choice. The two girls pick Mark Loftmore, a rebellious rich student and China's former boyfriend, including three other classmates - Tony, Gemma, and James. That night James and Gemma are spooked away and quickly leave, while the other four enter the waxwork, where they are welcomed by a diminutive butler and his giant companion who welcome them and usher them to the exhibition. Inside, they encounter several morbid displays, all of which are reference to conventional, stocky characters from a horror genre; one of these include a mad lumberjack axing a by passer to death, Frankenstein's monster, a voodoo houngan, Mr Hyde, a cobra-like circus freak, the Invisible Man, one of the alien pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Jack the Ripper.
Tony drops his cigarette lighter into a forest display and stumbles across the felt rope, finding himself inside an actual forest, and is bitten by a werewolf. Two hunters appear and shoot the werewolf and Tony, who is already turning. As the scene zooms out, it appears that the dead Tony has completed the scene of the display.
Similarly, China is drawn into a waxwork of a mysterious caped figure. She participates in a Victorian dinner, hosted by a a soft-spoken count, and is later attacked by the count's son, who reveals himself to be a vampire. China flees down to the basement, where she manages to dispatch the intruding Stephan and four female vampires, but back in the dining room she got victim of the hypnotic charm of the count, who penetrate his teeth into the unresisting woman's neck as the camera again retreats to reveal just another display.
Sarah is fascinated by a display of the Marquis de Sade, while Mark searches for the missing friends and interrupts Sarah just before she could enter the display. The two decide to leave and are told by the butler that the others have already left. The same night, China's boyfriend, who is looking for her, sneaks into the Waxwork and ends up the victim in the Phantom of the Opera exhibit.
The next day, seeing that Tony and China still have not been found, Mark contacts detective Roberts, who reluctantly agrees to have a look at the waxworks. In the exhibition, Roberts is especially attracted by the scene of an Egyptian tomb and is almost shoved into the scene by the owner. Roberts tells Mark to go home but later returns to the waxwork, where he takes a probe of China's face from the vampire display, but is then drawn into the Egyptian displag, where he is attacked by a Mummy and is dumped into a sarcophagus soon. His partner, who was waiting outside, also enters and is killed by the giant butler, after which the owner berates him.
Meanwhile, Mark tells Sarah that he recognizes the owner of the waxwork and takes her to the attic of his house, where he shows her an old newspaper detailing the murder of his grandfather (which was seen in the prologue); the only suspect was David Lincoln, his chief helper, whose photograph closely resembles the waxwork owner.
The two then consult the wheelchair-bound Sir Wilfred, a friend of Mark's grandfather, who explains how he and Mark's grandfather, a benevolent adventurer, went around the globe collecting trinkets from "eighteen of the most evil people who ever lived" and that Lincoln stole the artifacts; Lincoln, having sold his soul to the devil, wanted to bring their previous owners to life by creating some wax effigies and feeding them to the souls of conceptual victims, a concept taken from voodoo. Providing all eighteen with a victim would bring about the "voodoo end of the world, when the dead shall rise, and consume all things".
As told by Sir Wilfred, Mark and Sarah at night enters the waxwork to burn the exhibits, especially those still without a victim. As they douse the museum with gasoline, Sarah's attention is again captured by the Marquis de Sade, and, before Mark has the chance to pull her away, she steps into the display while Mark is pushed into a zombie display by the two butlers.
Mark is approached by a horde of zombies and is soon overwhelmed, but reasons that none of the displays is real and that if he doesn't believe the monsters, they don't exist to a T. This theory proves correct and Mark finds his way out of the display again. He dashes past the butlers and also enters into the Marquis de Sade exhibit, where Sarah is being whipped by the Marquis. Mark unchains Sarah, who however refuses to leave. Mark tells the Marquis that he is not real and, unharmed by bullets and strokes of the whip, takes Sarah out of the room and the exhibit, while the Marquis vows revenge.
Back in the real world, Mark and Sarah are apprehended by Lincoln and his two butlers and are dragged into hiding, as James and Gemma, the friends who earlier shied away from the waxwork, step into the display room. The two unknowingly stray into the final two displays and within seconds they appear dead and are waxed inside the Zombie and Marquis display, accomplishing Lincoln's plan and bringing the various displays to life.
Mark and Sarah attempt to flee but are stopped at the door by a mad lumberjack. Suddenly, Sir Wilfred and a huge group of armed men arrive and in the ensuing battle, several waxworks and slayers die, including Lincoln's butlers and Mark and Sarah's old, now evil, friends. Lincoln attempts to escape but is pursued by Mark. The Marquis de Sade,as bent on revenge, follows Mark and challenges him to a fencing duel. The Marquis eventually gains the upper hand but as he pauses to look up to a balcony, where Lincoln orders him to kill his opponent, he is killed by the lumberjack's axe, wielded by his former whipping-girl Sarah.
The reunited couple is confronted by Lincoln, who points a gun at the duo but before he shoots Sir Wilfred bursts onto the scene and shoots Lincoln, who falls off his balcony and into a tub of boiling wax. Lincoln tries to drag Mark into the tub as well but is quickly stopped and dies in the wax. Sir Wilfred tells Mark and Sarah to save themselves before he is killed by the werewolf Tony. Sarah and Mark manage to escape the burning waxwork with their lives and begin to walk home, not noticing that the hand from the Zombie display is scuttling away from the rubble.
[edit] Cast
- Zach Galligan as Mark Loftmore
- Deborah Foreman as Sarah Brightman
- Michelle Johnson as China Webster
- Dana Ashbrook as Tony
- Micah Grant as Jonathan
- Eric Brown as James
- Clare Carey as Gemma
- David Warner as David Lincoln
- Patrick Macnee as Sir Wilfred
- Mihaly 'Michu' Meszaros as Hans
- Jack David Walker (as Jack David Warner) as Junior
- Charles McCaughan as Inspector Roberts
- J. Kenneth Campbell as Marquis de Sade
- Miles O'Keeffe as Count Dracula
- John Rhys-Davies as Werewolf
- Jennifer Bassey as Mrs Loftmore
- Joe Baker as Jenkins
- Buckley Norris as Lecturer
- Tom McGreevey (as Tom MacGreevey) as Charles
Several crew members appear in small roles:
- Anthony Hickox, director, as English prince
- James Hickox, assistant editor, as werewolf hunter's assistant
- Gerry Lively, director of photography, as Sir Wilfred's butler
[edit] References to other films
Apart from the waxwork exhibits itself, the film contains further references to other films:
- The town name "Santa Carla" and the use of an identical missing persons poster reference to The Lost Boys.
- Sarah kills the midget butler by feeding him to a plant that was earlier portrayed as a pod from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Now, the plant calls "Feed me!", just as Audrey II in The Little Shop of Horrors
- Before bat-shaped Dracula is shot, his shooter quotes Dirty Harry: "Make my day!"
[edit] External links
- Waxwork at the Internet Movie Database
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