Movie Reviews : ‘Waxwork’: It Isn’t Worth the Candle

In “Waxwork” (citywide), a collection of stiff, waxy characters drenched with fake blood eye us stonily from dark, dusty settings. Are they wax? Are they human? Is there any difference? As we ponder this conundrum, we also weigh the macabre invitation of David Warner, stooping over in lank menace as the museum proprietor: “Would you like a closer look?”

Not really. “Waxwork,” a very distant descendant of Paul Leni’s 1924 “Waxworks” and Michael Curtiz’s 1933 “Mystery of the Wax Museum,” suggests yet again that all is not well in your neighborhood horror house. But things have been streamlined. Screaming human victims are no longer killed, dipped in wax and turned into statues. Now, they walk idiotically into exhibits, are surrounded by wavy blue lines, enter some kind of dimensional warp, fall into a succession of horror movie parodies. Some kind of horrendous plot is also going on: Warner, after selling his soul to the Devil 40 years ago, is now ready to unleash 18 of the world’s most dastardly fiends.

For shame, David Warner! For shame, writer-director Anthony Hickox! Shame, shame and double shame to the sextet of nubile teen-to-20s. Has youth no modesty, age no reason?

“Waxwork” (MPAA rated R, for language and violence) has one excellent element: Gianni (“La Traviata”) Quaranta’s dial-a-camp production design. It also has more horror movie allusions than any single recent movie, and the most bizarre climactic donnybrook this side of the killer Smurfs vs. the Pandas from Hell.

Warner, Campbell and John Rhys Davies give good performances. But overall, Hickox, the son of Douglas (“Theatre of Blood”) Hickox, shows a derivative, choppy, jagged style in his feature debut. He makes an uneasy stew of this mix of hip, flip teen-slasher gore and movie-buff aestheticism, of callous black humor and smarmy sentimentality. There’s a big problem here: too much waxy buildup.