Waxwork - Reise zurück in der Zeit

I was quite impressed with this movie, which I have just watched for the first time. It pays tribute to a lot of the old Universal and Hammer movies from the 1930's to the 1970's. It is very similar to House of Wax, which starred Vincent Price.

A group of students are invited to a 'showing' at the local wax museum, little knowing the owner wants them killed for his display. Each display contains monsters from the classic horror films, including the Wolf Man, the Mummy, Dracula and other vampires, the Phantom of the Opera, Jack the Ripper and some zombies and walking dead. This movie also includes a dwarf to complete the picture. When the owner has all his victims, fighting starts between all sorts of monsters and ghouls and local OAP's! This is probably the best part of the movie. The museum burns down at the end, but the two main characters survive.

The movie has a good cast, which includes Zach Galligan from the Gremlins movies and a trio of well known British stars: David Warner (Time Bandits, Titanic), Patrick Macnee (The Avengers, A View To A Kill) and John Rhys-Davies (Raiders Of The Lost Ark). Warner plays a great part as the owner of the wax museum.

If you are a fan of the old Universal and Hammer horror movies, you will enjoy this.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

Not exactly an Academy Award winner here, but this film is just fun. Director Anthony Hickox set out to make a fun horror spoof and he succeeds very well at it. Zach Gallagan once again stars as the almost nerdy unlikely hero. The film pays homage, firmly tongue in cheek, to the classic horror movies of long ago, and David Warner shines as the demented owner/creator of this wax palace of horrors.

Yes the plot is predictable, but who cares? This is a film meant to be fun and it is fun. Patrick MacNee is delightful as always. Johyn Rhys-Davies is sort of wasted in the small role they give him, but is good as ever. Dana Ashbrook could have used a little more screen time but he is at his smart-ass best in this film. All in all just a fun evening. Anyone looking for something more needs to see the original "House of Wax(1953)" with Vincent Price.

I didn't go into watching this B horror movie expecting a masterpiece so I was definitely surprised by how good this movie was. The concept is so ridiculous you wouldn't think this movie could be as awesome as it is. You can't take the movie too serious because it does have it's over the top goofy moments at times but that's all part of it's charm really. The make-up/special effects are what make this movie really affective, they are better than most all the horror movies in theaters these days (Why do movie makers think computer animated/simulated monsters are scare?!?! it's beyond me!). Maybe if they saw "Waxwork" they could get it right. Anyway...this surprisingly unique and clever little film is a real treat if you like 80's scary movies like me!!

Pretty fun horror movie! It's not the newest idea in the world: there'd been a German silent horror anthology movie set in a Waxwork. In that, a man is hired to write stories about some of the characters in the wax museum. In each segment, we see the story played out, and the author, the owner and his daughter appear in the segments as well. In the last segment, they're menaced by Springheel Jack.

In this film, a Waxwork appears in what seems to be a residential neighborhood - strange place to try to do business. It is filled with various death scenes involving werewolves, vampires, zombies, mummies, and so on. Some characters we don't see too much of seem to include the Invisible Man, Jack the Ripper. A group of young people are invited to a party at the Waxwork, and some of them step onto the displays, and find themselves transported into a live action scene where their lives are in danger.

I had a good time watching it. Some of the effects in it are good, as in the vampire one, but the werewolf is one of the worst I've seen. I liked it enough I'll definitely check out the sequel.

Admittedly I barely got through the latter half of this, before temptation dared me to sit it out to the end. Darned it. Definitely not Galligan's, Johnson's, Foreman's or even Warner's better work. But I blame that on the bad scripting, the horrible directing, the rather lazy production technique. And Lord knows, I have long respected and admired David Warner's work. Gifted villain is he, especially opposite his classic Jack the Ripper icon, opposite Malcolm McDowell in 'Time after time'. And certainly, one of the finer, solid English talents of our century. Thankfully his talent wasn't entirely wasted in this. He was allotted some grandeur evil moments; similar to the setup of Vincent Price's classic 'House of Wax'. Most inevitably, a few of the latter scenes curiously depicted those classic scenes,like the vat room and the staircase.

This film certainly started out decently, but some of the pacing was a tad slow. By the time the kids actually step inside the 'wax museum', and then walk around the exhibits, much just turns goofy or mindless from thereon. Eventually action becomes rather boorish. The special effects are mediocre if that, most of the period actors can barely act a wink, and the editing is just awful. Several of the slasher-gore action shots get goofy or make zero sense (or out of sequence), and the ending 'battle' scene between the 'monsters' and the good guys is laughable.

Perhaps this was intended to be a teen suspense comedy-drama. And it almost held the same quality humor as the Evil-dead series. However, with the awkward pacing, much of the intended visual effects fell either flat or victim to bad editing.