El museo de la muerte

THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) with Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray was remade in 1953 as HOUSE OF WAX with Vincent Price. Both of these films are horror classics in their own right. NIGHTMARE IN WAX is a remake of the remake, with Cameron Mitchel in the role of bitter, disfigured, wax figure creator, Vincent Renard.

True to the original plot, people are disappearing, shortly before new wax dummies appear in Vincent's studio. There's a new "twist", in that these are more like zombies than corpses dipped in wax. Vengeful and totally bananas, Mitchell plays Renard like he's channeling eeevil Captain Kirk in an eye patch, with oatmeal on his face!

Absurd and thuddingly boring, enduring this movie is like swimming through mud. Sans any terror, drama, or suspense, even its attempts at humor fall dead. Seemingly made over a long weekend, the production values are much like those found in TV commercials of the period. This is cinematic cruelty, a dull knife through the viewer's brainpan...

I must really like you folks to sit through $#%^ like this so you don't have to.As painful as it is I'll recap some of the plot.Excuse me if I start yawning.

Vince Renaud was Paragon Studios' top make up expert. He is in the middle of an affair with Paragons top female star. She is coveted by the studio head who built her career.When Renaud informs the jealous man at a party the studio boss sets Renauds face on fire.Instead of having the boss arrested Renaud opts for a bygones be bygones out look.Yeah, I can understand that.

Actually Renaud is crazier than a loon and has worked out an evil plan of revenge. After opening up a wax museum Renaud perfects a serum to put people into suspended animation.Then he starts kidnapping and "freezing" actors from Paragon Studios. The actors are put on display as wax figures. They need a shot of the old serum every once in a while to keep them rigid.Good thing these folks are stiffs as actors.

Renaud (who runs around in a strange outfit complete with a short cape)commits a few murders.One very unnerving scene has him motoring around town with a woman he just killed. He's planting a few kisses on her as well. YUCK!Of course the Police are absolute morons (led by Scott "I have no talent" Brady).The movie crawls on to an absolute horesbleep ending.

To say this movie reeks is an understatement.Cameron Mitchell (Renaud) chews up the scenery rolling his eyes and whispering stupid lines like"I love to hear you scream!It excites me!"So glad somebody is excited about this waste of film.The acting is horrible, the plot & dialogue just screams of incompetence and the director has no clue.

Your time would be better spent dry shaving a pit bull.Hold your nose and run from this garbage!

The career of Cameron Mitchell is fairly typical of a good, but second line actor after the collapse of the studio system. Left adrift they took work where they found it and Mitchell appeared in some awful films after the Fifties. Nightmare In Wax could be considered one of them, but the screenplay makes this film a camp delight with Mitchell leading an entire cast in an object lesson in overacting.

Cameron Mitchell is our protagonist in this film, he plays a former studio makeup artist who was burned and lost an eye as a result of an accident. He starts a Hollywood Wax Museum, but this man through a combination of drugs and hypnosis is using live subjects as his exhibits. He's planning revenge on those he felt wronged him. Scott Brady is a cop who suspects, but can't prove his involvement in the disappearance of some Hollywood notables.

Anne Helm is the girl Mitchell once loved, Berry Kroeger does a great caricature of a studio head, casting couch and all. Kroeger's latest squeeze is blond bimbo Victoria Carroll. Carroll in her own way gives the best performance in the film.

Nightmare In Wax is a fun black comedy, not to be taken seriously. It's hardly a great film, but far more enjoyable than I thought.

I love this flick. It's sleazy and mean without being xplicict. It's tacky and way entertaining. If you want Citizen Kane, look elsewhere, otherwise this House of Wax rip -off is a clunky blast! Cameron Mitchell is an eyepatch wearin' wax museum curatin' psycho who "freezes" various Hollywood hacks...if you can find it and you like bad movies it's well worth 90 minutes of your life.

This is a treat for fans of Z-grade movies. Here you will find writing and acting bad enough to rival anything Ed Wood ever produced. Veteran bad movie actor Cameron Mitchell is a former makeup man from "Paragon Studios" who, after a nasty acid-in-the-face incident at a social gathering, becomes an embittered Mad Scientist (tm) with a rubber scar on his face who takes revenge by kidnapping Paragon actors and turning them into living statues in his Secret Laboratory (tm) handily located in the local wax museum. Or are they zombies who do his bidding? He's not sure.

Happily, many of your favourite movie clichés are here. Check out the villain's lab! Are those mysterious steaming vats of liquid? Test tubes of coloured water with no explained purpose? Yay! And what ho, do we see spare arms and legs arranged kinda casual-like on a wooden rack? You betcha! Marvel at the bumbling detectives acting with straight out of Plan Nine! Now, enjoy a stupidly tame car chase, and hear more dizzy bimbo screaming than you could possibly want. Raise an eyebrow at the screwy plot line, made even more opaque by the totally meaningless ending that seems to have no connection to the rest of the movie.

Cheesy trash and much fun for the bad movie connoisseur.