Film Details:

Written and directed by Anthony Hickox (Waxwork II)

Starring
Zach Galligan (Gremlins)
Deborah Foreman (Real Genius, Valley Girl)
David Warner (Time Bandits, Titanic, In the Mouth of Madness, Tron, The Omen, Straw Dogs... and over 100 other films. I'm not kidding.)

Review: by Melissa (e-mail your faithful reviewer)

Waxwork is hardly great moviemaking. The acting is lousy, the characters are cookie-cutter 1980's movie teens, and the effects leave a lot to be desired.

But it has David Warner. DAVID WARNER! David Warner could make the pus from a dead dog appealing and interesting. (Well, he couldn't save Quest for the Delta Knights, but no human could or should.)

In fact, for an 80's teen horror flick, this one actually has an interesting premise, and it winds up being a lot of fun. It's especially fun for movie buffs. See, Waxwork is about a wax museum (run by DAVID WARNER!) that sucks people into its still-life vignettes. Once a character steps into a scene from, say, a thinly-disguised Night of the Living Dead, the film immediately embarks on a 10-minute spoof of Night of the Living Dead -- black & white film stock and all. It doesn't always work, but it's fun to see what the characters step into.

It's certainly not a great film, and it's only debatably a good film, but if you are a fan of 1980's teen horror schlock like My Best Friend is a Vampire (starring DAVID WARNER!) or Fright Night (not starring DAVID WARNER!), you could certainly do a lot worse than Waxwork. It definitely goes well with beer and pizza.

DVD Details:

It's not on DVD yet! How tragic is that? I want David Warner in full digital glory!

Okay, more specifically, it's not on Region 1 DVD yet. You can get the film on a Region 2 DVD in the UK. So, if you live in the US and have a little bit of finesse with electronics, you can chip your DVD player and play the PAL-formatted import DVD. If you don't have finesse with electronics, contact your local electronics geek friend (make sure you reimburse for the service -- large doeses of caffeine often work well). If you don't have an electronics geek friend, go get yourself some more useful friends!

Legend has it that there is also a Laserdisc print of the film. If you have one of those antediluvian players, you might be able to track down a used set of discs.

Happy hunting!

Further Information:

Internet Movie Database

In Brief

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