Terror in the Wax Museum

source: Terror in the Wax Museum

Moviecut—Terror in the Wax Museum

This looks like something of a classic, but unfortunately fails upon delivery due to excruciating pacing issues. The plot follows a series of characters as they squabble over the estate of the late John Carradine (who plays yet another useless mad scientist / professor type). Basically, Carradine's character was about to sell out to an American, and have the contents of his wax museum shipped to New York. The wax creatures of his museum are sentient, and do not agree with the proposal, so quickly do away with their master. Personally, if I was a murderous waxwork, I'd enjoy a trip to New York, if only to get away from the stink of industrial London. Anyway, the plot is a bore and not even the low cut tops of the female cast can save the day (I'm truly sorry, feminists). The fight scenes are unbelievably hammy and the score irritating and intrusive. Throw in a Scooby Doo-grade ending, and you've got a perfect recipe for British horror nonsense.

This was a great old movie, with a stellar cast of veteran horror actors. The pace is nice, the story holds together, and it was all done without CGI, gratuitous violence, or sex and nudity for the sake of it. I missed this film when it first aired when I was a kid, and enjoyed the chance to watch it now. If you like old house mysteries, this is an excellent example of the genre, and great for when you just want to relax with a good old movie.

Dupree's Wax Museum in Victorian London is the setting of a couple of murders including Dupree himself. Young Sergeant Hawks is given the task of solving the mystery. But who is the murderer? Someone posing as Jack the Ripper indeed. But who are they under the mask? It is quite a good film, more suspense than terror, and moves at a steady pace making it more like a 1930's film complete with garrulous London char ladies in the old Una O'Connor style. I don't know if it was meant as a pastiche but it turns out to be a pleasant one. This retro feeling is enhanced by a troop of fine veteran actors; Ray Milland, Patric Knowles, Maurice Evans, John Carradine, Broderick Crawford, Louis Hayward and Elsa Lanchester who effortlessly steals most of the scenes she is in. The wax dummies are played by real actors which unfortunately means that sometimes you do see them move when they shouldn't. A fair entertainment then with some atmospheric scenes and I did like the fact that the identity of the murderer is only revealed in the final shot. Cue end credits.

Gothic horror has a major place in world cinema that goes back to the silent era and continues to this day. The idea of dark streets of mostly European cities (usually foggy London) stirs the imagination to come up with all sorts of grizzly acts of every type of nefarious nature. In this case, it is the setting of a horror museum which features all sorts of wax figures reflecting notable historical figures and other notorious members of society who were more known for their murderous ways rather than being world leaders or contributors to the art world. It is the second batch of wax figures that this film deals mainly with, particularly the recently missing Jack the Ripper, still notorious to the Scotland Yard inspectors who were unable to figure out who he was, and for museum proprietor John Carradine, the presence of Jack's wax figure is enough to stir up tons of nightmares. After one such particular nightmare, he meets his fate at the hands of Jack's apparent walking wax corpse, and this brings in his niece Nicole Shelby and her companion (an over the top Elsa Lanchester) as the apparent heirs to his beloved business, managed by the rather cranky Ray Milland. A cast of veterans supports the top-billed Milland and Lanchester, with brash Broderick Crawford, 1940's heartthrob Louis Hayward, Shakespearean master Maurice Evans and former handsome leading man Patric Knowles in fine form, and "Oliver's" Shani Wallis singing repeatedly the same music hall song as if she was an early 1900's version of Nancy Sikes from Dicken's classic. This is a top notch mix of horror and comedy, perfectly entertaining but probably easy to figure out for most and thus quickly forgettable. Steven Marlo emulates the Hunchback of Notre Dame as the pathetic Karkov, a mute but sweet half wit who holds undying love for the kindly Shelby, one of the few people to treat him with tenderness. His presence in Carradine's basement and frequent appearance under a sewer grate is often horrifying for its amazing cruelty, and thus he ends up being the heart and soul of this film. A great gothic atmosphere also helps bring this above average, but unfortunately, that's not enough to change its predictability. The horror isn't in its garishness, but in the not knowing of what's going to come next, and that makes the frequent usage of comedy within the film somewhat distracting.

TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM is an amusing old slice of hokum that seems to pride itself on being as old-fashioned as possible. It's a murder mystery yarn with horror touches and a wonderful waxworks setting which recalls the heyday likes of HOUSE OF WAX and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM. This time around, the great John Carradine is the eccentric old timer murdered when his wax creations come to life; the authorities must then investigate. The film's pace is a little slow and drawn out, but this is worth seeing for the gothic atmosphere, the amusing attempts to recreate Victorian London on a studio backlot in Los Angeles, and a wonderful old-timer cast including Ray Milland, Elsa Lanchester, Maurice Evans, Louis Hayward, Broderick Crawford, and Patric Knowles.

Claude Dupree (John Carradine) has owned and operated the wax museum for years, but is forced to consider selling it due to financial difficulties. When Dupree is found murdered, Inspector Daniels (Maurice Evans) and Sgt. Michael Hawks (Mark Edwards) are on the case. Enter Dupree's niece, Margaret Collins (Nicole Shelby), who arrives to take possession of the museum as her inheritance. She has with her, the greedy Julia Hawthorne (Elsa Lanchester). Dupree's business associate, Harry Flexner (Ray Milland) is the museum curator. Also, Dupree's hunchback assistant, Karkov (Steven Marlo) stays on, living in the museum cellar. Margaret isn't in town long before more attacks occur, including the death of a prospective buyer of the museum (Broderick Crawford) by grisly means! Has Jack the Ripper come out of retirement? Or, has his wax likeness come to life? Or, is someone else committing these crimes? TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM isn't bad, but may put modern viewers to sleep rather quickly. Short on action, and packed with cheeeze-tastic elements, especially the rather silly "nightmare" sequences, it seems much longer than it actually is. More mystery than horror, there's a nice double revelation at the end. Worth a watch...

A mystery slasher is stalking a famous wax museum. Who is the culprit? Who will survive the terror? This is a pleasant and painless way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon, but don't expect too much. Be warned, it is very hard to find on video.

I guess that, for me, "Terror in the Wax Museum" is a guilty pleasure in the purest definition of the term. The ratings are abysmal, the reviews are terrible and from every possible objective viewpoint it's undeniably a weak and incompetent film, but still I LOVE IT! Can't help myself; this is simply the type of cheesy trash that turned me into a horror fanatic in the first place! It's typically and low-budget early 70s stuff, complete with a cast full of stars on their return, a poorly recreated Victorian setting and an absurdly grotesque plot! Claude Dupree runs a wax museum in the center of London around the turn of the 20th century. It's not a boring one like Madame Tussaud's, mind you, but a wax museum that only exhibits notorious monsters and madmen, like Lizzie Borden, Bluebeard and - of course - local legend Jack the Ripper. Although Dupree is proud of his life's work and addicted to his wax creations, he seriously considers selling the museum following a generous offer from a wealthy American. When Dupree is found stabbed to death with the Ripper's knife, Scotland Yard has several suspects to keep an eye on, like Dupree's surly associate, the greedy governess of his cute niece or the impatient American buyer. And then there's also Karkov, of course, Dupree's hideously deformed deaf-mute assistant who lives in museum's basement and who would be send to an institution in case of a sale. While the young Scotland Yard inspector investigates the case (and particularly Dupree's cute niece), the museum is making its biggest profits ever and the killer plots to strike again. "Terror in the Wax Museum" is genuine shlock, with images of giant tubs of bubbling wax, freaks grabbing ladies' feet from within the cellar hideout and lewd prostitutes losing their heads at the guillotine! Sue me, but I find this a lot more amusing than 90% of other so-called superior and pretentious horror movies. Evidently, I can't defend the film too fanatically, neither. Just to illustrate, similarly themed films like "House of Wax" (1953) and "Mystery of the Wax Museum" (1933) are several decades older but look less dated, more professional and better scripted. The cast is stupendous, at least if you're into old B-horror. John Carradine stars as the curator, Ray Milland is the exaggeratedly suspicious associate and Elsa Lancaster (the "Bride of Frankenstein" herself) appears as the utterly insupportable governess. In the same year, director Georg Fenady also made "Arnold", which is an equally enjoyable and unjustly overlooked horror comedy. Finally, I really liked how the script fooled around with the Jack the Ripper connection. The events supposedly take place 10 years after The Ripper committed his last murder and, as everyone knows, the case remained unsolved. Although the nature of these crimes clearly aren't his style, the script still cleverly hints that The Ripper is a possible suspect.