Friends Sarah (Deborah Foreman) and China (Michelle Johnson) get invited to a private tour of a new wax museum in their neighborhood by its curator/owner (David Warner) they bring their friends: Mark (Zach Galligan) Gemma (Claire Carey), James (Eric Brown) and Tony (Dana Ashbrook).
While on their private tour, Tony and China get separated from the others and find themselves pulled into the exhibits. Tony into a werewolf story where he has become part of the story. Trapped in a cabin in the woods with a man who turns into a werewolf (Jonathon Rys Davies) he gets bitten as a pair of hunters break into the cabin and kill the werewolf and as Tony starts changing, him as well, China enters another exhibit and has dinner with the handsome stranger and his guests. Or in this case the stranger is Dracula (Miles O’Keeffe) and the dinner was another guest. China pretends to sample the meal and after is escorted to her room. After looking around the room the Strangers son comes in and attacks her, but she gets away and winds up in the room where the missing member of the dinner party is still alive but missing parts. She doesn’t believe its real, much like Tony in the werewolf exhibit. BUT it is. After defeating all the vampires, she ends up facing the Stranger/Dracula and as we saw from the exhibit…loses.
Meanwhile Mark is looking for his friends and Sara gets interested in the Marquis DeSade exhibit and almost pulled into it. They decide to leave and see if they can find their friends. After they leave another student Jonathan (Micah Grant) comes in and the Curator shows him the Phantom of The Opera exhibit.
Mark escorts Sara home and they nearly kiss, but she stops it. Back home we see Mark is just as spoiled as we think when he has his housekeeper do his homework..badly. Next morning he’s still trying to find China and Tony who never made it home, I can’t imagine why.
Going to the police Mark manages to convince them to check out the museum, Inspector Roberts (Charles McCaughan) Finds nothing because he doesn’t look hard, The Curator tries talking and then accidently nearly pushing him into the Egyptian Mummy exhibit, but Roberts leaves with Mark instead. While Mark pretends to be dying from a totally real illness and dragging Sara out of her class because he remembers seeing the Curator somewhere before. Inspector Roberts is looking thru missing persons reports and recognizes some faces as being in the exhibits at the museum.
Roberts heads back to the museum and breaks in to see if his hunch is right about what he saw. Stopping at the Dracula exhibit he steps over the rope and inspects China’s body, scrapping off wax and underlying skin tissue putting it in a baggie. Seems that to go into the exhibit the velvet ropes have to be open. Odd little plot device but ok.
Meanwhile Mark and Sara go into Mark’s home attic and look thru his grandfather’s papers in an old chest. He finds newspaper articles about past killings, one of which is his grandfather death, she finds a (magical) book on the Marquis DeSade that seems to hint at a darker side she represses. The newspaper article talks about missing 36, altho its only 18 ,artifacts and a David Lincoln, the Curator of the museum who hasn’t aged in all this time
At the museum Inspector Roberts goes into the Mummy exhibit and becomes part of the story by helping open the mummy’s tomb which awakens the mummy who does what mummys do and kills everyone painfully and brutally and sealing Roberts in the tomb forever.
Mark and Sara go to meet an old friend of his grandfathers, Sir Wilfred (Patrick Macnee) to ask about what’s happening and telling the story we’ve already seen. He tells them about how he and his grandfather and Lincoln looked into dark magic and voodoo, his grandfather collecting artifacts from the 18 most evil people in the world. Lincoln stole the artifacts and killed his grandfather which we see at the beginning of the movie. He sold his soul to the devil for eternal life but he has to bring about the end of the world by collecting souls of people to bring it about. The only way to stop it is to destroy the museum. As Mark and Sara leave Sir Wilfred calls someone to tell them Lincoln has been found.
Back at the museum Roberts partner who has been waiting in the car outside gets tired of waiting and decided to break into the museum as well to find his missing partner, where he is promptly killed by another helper of the curator, this time instead of a dwarf, a giant. Lincoln is mad because they still need 2 more victims for his plan. A dead body can’t be used.
That night Mark and Sara go to the museum to break in and burn it down You know, with the amount of people just breaking into the place you’d assume that some sort of security system would be put up somewhere. And, again, Sara is drawn to the DeSade exhibit, girl seems to have some SERIOUS repressed freak going on. I guess you scratch the surface of any angel and you’ll find a little devil inside. She goes into the exhibit and Mark is pushed into the zombie exhibit.
The Marquis (J. Kenneth Campbell) shows the nights entertainment to the Prince, Sara. Locking her up he start to whip her letting her understand the intimate appeal of pleasure mixed with pain. While Mark is running in the cemetery from the zombies rising from their graves while battling with a hand that won’t let go. Mark realizes that it’s not real and that only his belief is keeping him inside the exhibit, if he doesn’t believe then he can leave…and he does right into the dwarf and giant who try to grab him before he can make it into the Marquis exhibit to save Sara. Who does NOT want to leave and that inner freak enjoys the pain. Or so it seems, Mark shows her it’s all in her mind, they can’t be hurt if they don’t believe it. At the barrier between the real and imagination they walk out back into the museum. Right into the waiting arms of Lincoln and his giant.
Pulled out of sight they all watch as Gemma and James who have returned to the museum for some stupid reason even after knowing pretty much everyone they know who’s went inside never came back out but hey, its a horror movie and they do the most stupid idiotic things for no reason whatsoever. They each go into an exhibit, Gemma into the Marquis, James into the zombie and reappear in the exhibit, now a part of it. With their deaths the plan/collection is complete, and Lincoln can bring about the end of the world.
Just as an annoyance plot point. James steps over the velvet rope and is pulled into the exhibit, yet earlier Roberts DIDN’T..unless its where the exhibit only needed 1 specific person for it to work. Making that assumption, 1 per person for the exhibits.
And with the exhibits complete the spell is unleashed and the exhibits now come to life, ready to destroy the world. Mark and Sara realize that it’s over, roll the credits, evil has won and they can’t get away….until Sir Wilfred and Marks butler Jenkins (Joe Baker) along with a group of people, a geriatric army of warriors, who were waiting for this moment to come in to destroy Lincoln and his plan once and for all. Giving Mark some weapons that belonged to his grandfather the battle starts. None of the evil exhibits can make it out or the world is doomed. The fate of everything is fought here…a museum that’s about 5 times larger on the inside than out in the middle of the suburbs.
During the battle Sara is attacked by James who doesn’t care it’s her and Mark by China, his ex-girlfriend who is ready to bite him, before Jenkins saves him and explains these people aren’t people anymore. Mark kills Gemma and tries to save Jenkins but is too late but he does avenge his death by killing the giant. In the chaos Mark and The Marquis face off again. Fire rages in the exhibit room as Mark has chased after Lincoln who gets saved by the Marquis who wants Mark for himself.
Lincoln watches the fight and just as the Marquis is about to kill him he’s killed by Sara with an axe to the back. Mark and Lincoln talk about his grandfather and why he wants to end the world but Lincoln is killed by Sir Wilfred who shoots him and causes him to fall into the vat of wax but Winfred himself is killed by the werewolf. Mark and Sara are trapped by the fire but manage to get out while no one else does. They watch the museum burn to the ground.
The good guys win, the world is saved and the hero gets the girl. All is right in the world…if you don’t count the zombie hand that somehow managed to survive and chases after our unsuspecting heroes as we fade to black.
Ahh this is and has always been one of my personal favorites. YES it’s a cheesy, at times, goofy film. not exactly great acting but to me it’s just so much fun to watch. They put so much world building into the film that you honestly could create a tv series around it. That’s what I enjoy about it..that potential to be more than it was and it proved enough to have a sequel made to follow up. While I’m not a fan of continuous remakes this is one that I wouldn’t mind being redone, as long as it kept the fun and somewhat campiness of the original.
If you’re a fan of b-movies, like I am, especially 80’s-early 90’s b-movies, give it a watch. Don’t expect high art or depth. Don’t expect Oscar caliber performances just sit and watch and let your mind relax for a little while and have fun.
Comments? Question? Want to make a statement about my taste or lack thereof in films? Feel free to leave something.
Till next time…
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1 thought on “Waxwork (1988)”