Wax

Like so many Full Moon films before it, Wax starts out using the tired premise of the filming of a reality show. Journalist Mike is challenged by the producers to spend the night in a haunted wax museum in Barcelona. Mike carries a video camera around with him while being filmed by various cameras set up around the museum... All while being shown footage of serial killer and cannibal Dr Knox performing ghastly rituals to his victims.

Director Víctor Matellano gets a few things right. For one, the atmosphere is extremely chilling and the gore scenes are certainly something to be proud of. Unfortunately, Wax quickly becomes one of those films where it is difficult to suspend your disbelief... As your average horror viewer will certainly start to question how and why and WTF?! as the story progresses. Maybe instead of writing roles specifically for cameos, more thought could go into tying everything together.

It deals with a young reporter, Jimmy Shaw, who signs up a reality show run by Geraldine Chaplin. He has to spend a whole night at Barcelona Wax Museum. Initially he thinks of standing alone inside the dark location, but things go wrong when a sinister, sadistic and mysterious figure shows up :Doctor Knox, Jack Taylor, Hannibal Lecter-lookalike.

Average horror movie with a lot of grisly killing, spooky situations, slashing, gore and guts. It is utterly set inside a creepy museum, there takes place ghastly happenings carried out by a malevolant Doctor Knox, that's why Knox was a Scottish physician who underwent human experiments thanks to corpses delivered by the infamous undertakers Bucky and Hare. Here stands out the splendid makeup by the prestigious artist Colin Arthur, as well as the costumes designed by the notorious and recently deceased Yvonne Blake who was Oscar winner for Nicholas and Alexandra, and Patton. Cast and support cast are acceptable. Stars Jimmy Shaw as the young who eventually encounters himself being horrorized by the eerie presence of the cannibal Doctor Knox well played by Jack Taylor. And a varied group of intimate secondaries who usually played sinister roles in the 70s such as Lone Fleming, Antonio Mayans, Saturnino Garcia, Denis Rafter and voice in off by the terror king, Paul Naschy or Jacinto Molina.

The motion picture was regularly directed by Victor Matellano. He is a crafstman who attempts to rekindle the usual genres of the 60s and 70s as Terror and Spaghetti Western . He has directed shorts and documentary, such as Stacatto, Regresa el Cepa, Tio Jess, The ravine of the British , Zarpazos Spanish terror. He has made three passable movies as Vampyres, Stopover in the hell and this Wax.

It's a great old-time movie concept, a reporter having to stay overnight in a scary place, in this case, a wax museum. It's been done to great comic and horror effect in films of the 1940's and 1950's. Haunted houses, wax museums, and spooky islands raked in the bucks by using such a durable concept. In the case of Wax, the effect doesn't work as well; the film never really grabs the audience, losing the audience by trying to focus on too many threads, and a drab, dull protagonist (who at times reminded me of Brad Dourif and William Katt). Wax could have been helped by those earlier films; most of them came in at 65 minutes or so. Wax needs much editing...and a better ending.

Not a good movie to watch for especially the lame story so far the movie does not have any sense.

I was already familiar with some of Víctor Matellano's work, such as "Zarpazos! A Journey Through Spanish Horror" (2013) or "Regresa El Cepa" (2019), that last one I really liked. I was looking forward to watching some of his fiction films, and the other day I came across "Wax."

The truth is, the film ended up disappointing me... in the first 30 minutes, we see several plots running parallel, but without any conflict... When the conflict finally arrives, I have to say the film improves. However, it then slows down again, leading to a rather trite ending that, in my opinion, is "quick-fix." The best things for me are the soundtrack and the occasional well-presented scare. In the end, it drags on, and you feel like it didn't really add much to the horror story... It's a shame, because I thought the bad reviews were caused solely by haters.