Wax

All goodA

It's wonderful to see Spain finally get back to making horror films again in the New Millennium, starting with Julio Fernandez/Brian Yuzna's Filmax Entertainment/Fantastic Factory, which gave us many films, including FAUST: LOVE OF THE DAMNED (2000); ARACHNID (2001); DAGON (2001); BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2003); ROTTWEILER (2004); one of my favorites TRANSSIBERIAN (2008) and many others (and still going strong) and continuing on to director Juame Belagero and Paco Plaza's four "found footage" [REC] films (2007 - 2104; although, to be fair, the fourth film wasn't found footage at all and, therefore, was my favorite of the four), which begat our own copy of the first film, the found footage QUARANTINE (2008; with a lousy DTV follow-up in 2011 called QUARANTINE 2: TERMINAL, both of which I find painful to watch). And then there are films like this: Horror flicks which throw-in Spanish horror stars from the past (including Jack Taylor; THE VAMPIRES NIGHT ORGY [1972]; Lone Fleming; A CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL [1971]; Antonio Mayans; A DRAGONFLY FOR EACH CORPSE [1973]; Geraldine Chaplin; INNOCENT BYSTANDERS [1972] and the voice of Paul Naschy [who passed away in 2009], which is a cheat to U.S. audiences because he is a wax figure that speaks in Spanish [in dialogue taken from other Spanish Films] and we are not even given any English translation!) and mix them in with modern-day gore, much of it the "torture porn" variety (no CGI here, which lifts it a peg in my book, even if I am not a fan of torture porn). The end result is mixed, but there is no doubt in my mind that Jack Taylor is still one scary dude and most of the other "old-timers" make this film worth watching. I can't say the same thing about the rest of the cast, who look like amateurs when compared to the people I just talked about. Director/co-screenwriter Víctor Matellano does a good job of making the few sets he works with as creepy as possible (he also just finished directing a remake of Jose Ramom Larraz's VAMPYRES [2015] and made the Spanish documentary CLAWING! A JOURNEY THROUGH THE SPANISH HORROR in 2013) and co-screenwriter Hugo Stuven Casasnovas has just directed/wrote his first horror film ANOMALOUS (2015). So, I will say that the state of Spanish horror films is now flourishing again. And that make me happy. But, let's get back to this film (it is filmed in English with a few scenes in Spanish thrown in): A young writer named Mike (Jimmy Shaw) gets an assignment from his Producer (Geraldine Chaplin) to spend a night at the extremely eerie Vista Wax Museum, which she has outfitted with a bunch of hidden cameras, along with the wax museum's security system. A wax figure of notorious serial killer Dr Knox (Jack Taylor; PIECES - 1982, and too many other Spanish horror films to mention here. Let me just say this: It is good to still have him around) has just been introduced and even it gives me the willies looking at it. The problem may be that Mike is not the only one in the wax museum that night. Dr. Knox (who is due to be extradited to a U.S prison from a Barcelona prison, where he is to be executed immediately; he has a Charles Manson-like following) may also be in the museum and he gets off on graphically killing people in ways that are so disgusting, the DVD should have come with a barf bag for those with weak stomachs. The film actually starts with the following quote from French poet Christian Bobin: "It's a fact that life take out our heart, if not...this is not life." We them watch Dr. Knox pull a cover off a topless girl (her eyes seem to be glued shut with molten wax and her mouth and nether region are covered with duct tape) as he removes one of her fingernails with Hemostats. The woman has a pleasant memory about her husband and son having a good time at the beach before reality takes her to the present as Dr. Knox kills her by cutting into her chest with a scalpel. We are shown how every wax figure got their own effigy in the museum (the film's best sequence) as Mike pushes the wheelchair-bound, eyepatch-wearing curator of the museum, Mr. Jarrod (Denis Rafter), through the museum, showing him how to use the security system and warning Mike that there are some "blind spots" in the security camera's system. He also tells Mike that there are three reasons why anyone would want to spend a night at a wax museum: 1) The money. 2) Because he's a sadist. and 3) He is totally crazy. Mr. Jarrod also mentions a similar incident that happened at this wax museum ten years ago, but refuses to tell Mike how it ended. A weird wax figure (which the curator calls an "automaton") that is able to turn its head and move its lips (and talks in the voice of Paul Naschy) speaks in Spanish and the curator says it is a quote from the Book Of Revelations and takes it to mean a bad omen for Mike to spend the night at the wax museum (he doesn't realize how right he is). He also shows Mike the Tunnel Of Terror and mentions that he must know who Dr, Knox is, because that is where his wax figure is kept (there a hidden camera on that figure at all times). We then see a flashback where Dr. Knox picks up a hooker in his black Mercedes, takes her to an undisclosed location and she strips. Dr. Knocks knocks her out and she wakes up tied to a table, while Dr. Knox cuts off her ear and cuts out one of her eyes. The flashback ends. Or was it a flashback at all? Mike's friend Steve (Alito Rogers) leaves him with a videotape and a cell phone and then leaves, locking the door behind him. Mike watches the videotape, which is of the Producer telling Mike he can't leave the wax museum until 8:00am the following morning and that the cell phone has been tinkered with so no outside calls can be made. Only she can call him and she plans on calling him at 4:00am to check-up on his progress. She then goes on to tell him something he doesn't know. Her company is making a show called "The Mysteries Of The Wax Museum". She goes on to explain that throughout the years strange and unexplainable events have happened at the Vista Wax Museum and that Steve has supplied him with bags of video cameras and batteries to record his exploits. It is at this time that the film partially becomes a "found footage" film, as Mike films his exploits, showing footage on a monitor next to the figure of Dr. Knox of some of his bloody exploits, but he stops it and puts another camera near the wax figure of Dr. Knox. Suddenly, the video begins playing on the monitor again, as we watch Dr. Knox pouring molten wax in a poor girl's eyes (the same girl we saw in the beginning and then eating his victim's internal organs while she is still alive. We then see another Dr. Knox flashback, where he cuts out a girl's eyes because he thinks there is a bird trapped behind them (I wonder if it was a hummingbird?). Mike begins to start experiencing strange things, such as a red rubber ball (the same type Dr, Knox used to gag his victims) disappearing from the hand of a wax Alfred Hitchcock. So many strange things happen, that when the Producer calls Mike at 4:00am to tell him Dr. Knox has escaped, Mike is not surprised. What does surprise him is that Dr. Knox escaped from prison long before Mike was trapped in the wax museum, so it looks as if Mike is being set up to be a victim for reality television (believe me, we are slowly getting there on real TV). When Mike discovers that the "wax" figure of Dr. Knox was actually the real Dr. Knox (a scene that is expertly done and sent shivers down my spine), a game of cat-and-mouse comes into play. Mike watches a video where Dr. Knox eats the rotting flesh of his dead wife Noria (Yolanda Font). It is at this point whether we must decide if Mike's Producer is staging all of this for ratings, especially since the electricity goes out and we have to watch everything happen in that sickly green night vision. Mike is captured by Dr. Knox, who says he is going to eat him. Dr. Knox says he will be enjoying this slices of Mike's liver, spleen and pancreas and as a refreshing beverage, he will extract some liquid from Mike's liver capsule and as an appetizer, he will be eating another rare part of Mike's body (Try as I might, I couldn't make this part out). We then see Dr. Knox cut open Mike's chest with a scalpel and then pull out pieces of Mike's body (Be aware that Mike is awake for all this!). Dr. Knox then puts his hand through Mike's sternum to pull out his liver. Dr. Knox then makes Mike eat his own body parts by shoving a funnel down his throat. Dr. Knox then puts a live rat into Mike's body, as Mike strikes Dr. Knox's face, revealing it was made of wax. When the Producer enters the wax museum in the morning and finds Mike dead (She was setting him up the whole time because she knew he was unstable since his wife's death), the coroner (Lone Fleming) pronounces him dead due to a heart attack. It makes sense except for the rather confusing ending (I think it helps if you are Spanish, but the thrust of the story is that most the bad things we saw happening were actually going through Mike's mind [the ones that weren't were supplied by the Producer] because he was mentally unstable and the Producer knew that and decided to make a hit reality show displaying his death). Believe me when I say that most reality show producers would kill (literally!) to have a chance like this in real life as long as they are not implicated or found legally responsible. I simply cannot stand torture porn (and I hate that term just as much as I hate the acts myself, but it has become genre venacular), but Jack Taylor is just so damned terrifying (director Víctor Matellano has said on record that WAX would not have been made if Taylor turned down this role), I was willing to overlook all the gore for gore's sake just to listen to Jack Taylor talk. His demeanor in this film is as a very soothing, even when he is cutting out a woman's eyes or cutting out a heart. Jack Taylor would have made a damn fine Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter. Let's hope that Matellano breaks out of the torture porn & found footage mode and makes a regular horror film. He has a great eye for creating atmosphere but he needs to show gore (which I am not against) in a more traditional manner. You remember, like they use to do back in the 70's. Also starring Almudena León, Saturnino García, Vicky Luengo, Manuel M. Velasco and Ainhoa Blanco Ducar. A Full Moon Features DVD Release. Not Rated.

Fantástic!!

Mike (Jimmy Shaw) is a young journalist who is shooting a reality show. He is locked overnight into the creepy Barcelona Wax Museum. Nobody lasts the night according to the caretaker. He is instructed to set up cameras at key locations and is given horror films to watch. In a closely related subplot we get to see the real life of one of the displays: Dr. Knox (Jack Taylor, Dr. Know was already taken). It seems Dr. Know was a Hannibal Lecter type, keeping his victims alive while he consumed their internal organs a bit at a time. Victims normally being young nude females. Mike is informed by his producer that Dr. Know had escaped prison that morning... The film had a nice twist with clues that would be better described as hints there is something else going on. A slightly better horror than a simple slasher film. Guide: F-bomb. No sex. Full frontal nudity.

This film has no plot to speak of and due to erratic film editing when you {try to} follow what's on the screen - it is impossible, that is if you could only see it !!! Why ? Because the camerawork / photography is substandard with the images dark and grainy. The actors / actresses are unattractive and production values are nil !! There is little to no shock value in the gore scenes. I love slasher films and can usually find something good in the most mediocre ones but this one was an absolute zero in all areas. I give it one star for the folks who financed and produced this flick for having the courage to bring this garbage to the screen.

boring

For a lot of reasons, I wanted to really like this movie. It stars Jack Taylor, who has been in a long list of cult favorites and has acted in major motion pictures as well (such as The Ninth Gate), and also features Geraldine Chaplin and Lone Fleming (Tombs Of The Blind Dead), and neatly has parallels between the serial killer Jack Taylor portrays (Dr. Knox) and the character from House Of Wax (1953). In the making of featurette, the director explains he wanted to make this movie to portray his fears from childhood, as well as things he found scary. The problem is there are a number of creepy elements, and Jack Taylor looks genuinely disturbing, but just as the blind men in the room with the elephant all describe a different creature based on the part they touch, this movie has numerous parts put together which don't add up to make a genuinely scary movie. Also this movie is dubbed, and at a few points they fail to dub the foreign language -- usually Spanish, but in one case German. It would have been better to dub the whole dialogue, or provide subtitles, as the untranslated parts left in weaken the movie because an English-speaker doesn't understand them. Possible spoiler alert ahead -- The serial killer is a man who cuts up his victims while alive and eats parts of them. The effects are good, but there is little suspense in how the victims are tortured. Another problem is during a large part of the movie the lights are turned off somehow (but not the electric power, as the wax museum displays still go through their programmed displays). Then the only way we see something is when the journalist sees through a camera lense in infrared. This is meant to be scary, but it goes on far too long and will kill of any sympathy you have for this character, as he is cravenly cowering during his attempts to escape. The end wraps up everything in a very dissatisfying ending. Recommended with reservations for fans of Jack Taylor. Just don't expect a very scary movie.

Interesting film but did not have much plot.