It featured Lionell Atwill as a disfigured waxwork artist who lost his prized creations in an act of arson and gains revenge via murdering guilty and innocent alike. The device was then notably used in Michael Curtiz’s 1933 pre-Code film Mystery at the Wax Museum. Ostensibly a genre-spanning anthology film concerning various wax figures, Waxworks is best known for the final tale, in which the figure of Jack the Ripper/Spring-Heeled Jack comes to life in a dream sequence and attacks the protagonists. It was first explored in Paul Leni’s 1924 Expressionist film Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (aka Waxworks).
Lincoln (David Warner) invites Sarah & China (Deborah Foreman, Michelle Johnson) to a private viewing (Vestron Pictures)ĭrawing on their uncanny imagery, wax figures have a long history as a plot device. The stakes are high when Mark Loftmore (grandson of the murdered partner) and his friends are invited to a midnight showing at Waxwork, which appeared out of nowhere. Once 18 victims have been consumed inside 18 displays, the effigies will be reborn, bringing about the “end of the world, when the dead shall rise and consume all things.” On the other side, they become active players within the world of each display that is home to living monsters. Those crossing the rope barriers slip into parallel dimensions. “Would you like a closer look?” Lincoln’s signature line before inviting (or pushing) someone into a display The catch? They need souls to live again.
After murdering his partner and stealing 18 artifacts owned by “18 of the most evil people who ever lived,” waxwork artist David Lincoln sells his soul to the devil and sinks the artifacts inside wax effigies of their original owners on display in his “Waxwork” museum. This 1988 film (with tongue firmly in cheek) features a Faustian bargain made in exchange for immortality. In the case of writer-director Anthony Hickox’s Waxwork, they invite them in.
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