In my hometown, there used to be two movie theaters (or
there were way back when), the Hersker and the Church Hill Cinema.
The Church Hill had two screens, and the
Hersker only had one, but it was huge, and it seated about six hundred
people.
The theater opened in 1915, and
even though it has undergone numerous changes (and is now a cinema and
drafthouse, though it still just shows second run films rather than very many
art or independent fare), it has remained in the same spot for all this
time.
The Church Hill Cinema expanded
into multiple smaller screens and eventually shut down.
The point of the history lesson is that I
first encountered actor
Zach
Galligan at the Hersker.
If you
guessed that the film in question was Joe Dante’s
Gremlins, you would be right.
Out in the theater’s lobby (and I also have to mention that
I miss lobby cards [What are they? Go
look them up]) was a one sheet for the film, and I loved that thing. It had the half-opened box with the big,
bright mogwai eyes staring out of it; his chubby little hands, like a pair of
furry weightlifting gloves with Vienna sausages sticking out of them. What’s not to love? So, of course I asked if I could have the
poster when the film closed, and I was told that I could. To make a long story short, through the
caprices of fate I didn’t get the poster, and while I bear no malice toward
anyone at the theater today (I’m pretty sure it’s under new ownership, anyway,
so…), I was plenty peeved at the time.
I could even buy the damn poster now for about thirty bucks, but it just
wouldn’t be the same thing or hold the same sort of significance to me
anymore. I think you understand what I’m
saying. Zach Galligan was in Gremlins.
Opening in the 30s, the Loftmore mansion is ransacked and
its owner immolated while a cover of Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing”
plays.
Cut to the present of 1988, and
spoiled but likable rich kid Mark (Galligan), whose mom treats him like he’s
still a child, has the hots for blond sexpot China (
Michelle Johnson).
While walking to school (I want to say
college, but it’s difficult to tell, because all the characters act like
they’re still in high school), China and Sarah (
Deborah Foreman) notice a
waxworks, and it’s Wonka-imitating proprietor Lincoln (
David Warner) invites them to a
private showing at midnight but also states that their party cannot have more
than six people in it.
That night, part
of the group finds out the hard way that the displays (all horror-related) are
not quite inanimate.
Anthony
Hickox’s Waxwork is, at the start at least, a portmanteau film disguising itself as
a Creature Feature.
There is a plot to
be followed involving the museum as a story in and of itself, a framing device
of sorts.
But each of the displays opens
a gateway into a different scenario.
That these scenarios are not particularly original (in fact, they are
entirely derivative) is part of their charm.
In a normal Horror anthology film, there is some attempt for each of the
stories to have something unique about them, a twist which it’s hoped the
viewer won’t see coming a mile off (but very rarely is this the case).
In the spirit of the EC Comics which inspired
so many (or at the absolute minimum inspired most of the ones that came from
Amicus Productions), these twists are typically either bleak and/or blackly
comical and always ironic.
In this film,
though, the isolated stories play out as if they are themselves merely scenes
from standalone Horror Films.
In fact,
they play the part of kill scenes from a Slasher Film, but instead of having
the expectant victims being slowly stalked and dispatched by a lumbering,
faceless hulk, they are killed by different monsters in their own distinctive
style.
And here it must be noted that these individual styles, like
the film itself, are really nothing more than Hickox’s paean to and personal
take on the classic monster films of yore.
In this way, the film is a Monster Mash, like Universal’s House Of Frankenstein, Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein, House Of Dracula, and so on. What’s interesting is that the first time
Mark and company visit the wax museum, all of the displays walked into are straight
from the Universal vaults (Dracula, The Wolfman, etcetera). The second night at the waxworks, the
displays are far more modern (zombies, the Marquis de Sade). The filmmakers separate traditional from
neoteric horrors, and it feels as if we’re taking a walk through a history of
cinematic Horror Films (well, a highlight reel, anyway). But the director does put his own spin on
these tales, with Dracula’s being both more gruesome and offbeat than the (traditionally
libidinous) story is normally depicted, and I felt this was the strongest of
the display tales.
Intriguingly, each display and the characters’ interaction
with them (mostly) are meant as a mirror of that particular character’s inner
self. For example, China eats human
flesh, feeling that this is what mature adults do, and she wants more than
anything to find romance with a mature man.
Sarah is sexually repressed, but the thought of a bit of S&M
literally makes her wet at several points in the film (it’s sweat, but
still). As an extension of the sinister Lincoln’s
id, and the ids of the characters, they share a desire, each opening up to the
other, but where the fulfillment of Lincoln’s id takes him towards his ultimate
goal of immortality, the fulfillment of the other characters’ ids lead to
death. Had the filmmakers stuck to this
idea, and played by the rules which they themselves set up, the film could have
been an early version of The Cabin In
The Woods. But since there are
obvious concessions to plot and marketability over thematic concerns, the
stronger ideas of the film don’t hold up.
This is most readily evidenced in the melee (replete with a modern day
gang of “angry villagers,” again invoking the Universal movies) which climaxes
the film. There are bits given here and
there to individual characters, but by and large, it’s little more than
flailing around until the end credits roll.
Granted, the lead up to this donnybrook is both fun and entertaining,
but part of me wishes that Hickox would have put a little more effort into
refining some of his base ideas. I think
it would have been well worth the trouble.
MVT: The concept of the Universal monsters
with a modern, more gore-centric spin is compelling, and they come off quite
well for the most part. It’s sort of
like what Paul Naschy was doing with his Spanish films back in the 70s, and it
has its own charms, to be sure.
Make Or Break: The Dracula scene Made the film for
me. This Dracula is sexual without being
overwrought, and the level of splatter and violence is noteworthy. Plus, there are some truly funny moments
(involving China’s display-world fiancé) that also manage to be ghastly on a
certain transgressive level. Nothing too
offputting, mind you, but still pretty gross.
Score: 6.75/10
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