Justin's Rating: The hand! The hand!
Justin's Review: It's just slightly odd and slightly off-beat... a good watch for a rainy afternoon. Following typical 80s slasher movie fashion, a group of teenagers (led by rich boy Zach Galligan, of Goonies fame) discover a Waxwork museum where before there wasn't one. Naturally, curiosity overcomes stupidity (or works hand-in-hand with it) and they visit this house of horror. Although, I would like to say I gave a round of applause to two of the teens, who decided not to go into the place, and therefore survived with their movie lives.

Basically, the Waxwork has scenes from different horror classics (Dracula, the Mummy, Phantom of the Opera, werewolfs, etc.), but they're actually real. The teens end up falling into these little worlds and get hacked and slashed, thereby turning into wax sculptures themselves.

To try to make this film a cut above the generic genre, the filmmakers tried two tacks. The first, which failed, was to make this waxwork a battleground between good and evil (monsters and Satan, natch). There's this exposition scene where a wheelchair uncle goes on and on about how the end of the world's going to come and blah blah blah. Let's see some blood! And poetry (that's for our family audience)! The end battle is confusing and largely pointless. Plus, the good guys use swords and axes... um, is there something wrong here? I know this is the 80s, but there are semi-automatic weapons that will put down Dracula just as fast as a wooden stake!

The other approach, which somewhat succeeded, was to satirize the horror genre and present a slight twist to it. Some of the scenes are side-splittingly funny, with bits of brilliance sprinkled in with sarcastic humor. My favorite characters were the midget and Lurch-giant (the midget bosses the tall guy around like nobody's business).

Waxwork was surpassed by it's much superior sequel, for a few reasons. The characters in Waxwork are annoying and their conversations are like listening to high school girls discussing deep relationships. Ugh! The gore content is high, though most looks pretty fake. And there's a scene involving sexual torture of the one mandatory virgin that I did not find all that entertaining. However, this series has a lot going for it, and the first movie is a great lead-in to Waxwork II: Lost In Time.

Recommended for:
80s Material Girls
Smokers (lots of cigarette smoking in this movie)

The Movie Store!
Waxwork: Movie [VHS]

Intermission!
For MST3K fans, Dracula is played by Miles O'Keefe, who starred in the abysmal Cave Dwellers. ("How much Keefe is in this movie?" "Miles O'Keefe!")

Groovy Quotes:

Dracula: Steak tartar? Ah, yes. Steak tartar.

If you liked this movie, try these:
Waxwork II: Lost in Time
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn

Soundtrack Review: Over the credits, they play the upbeat "It's My Party".