Waxwork (1988)

(In French, On Cable TV, September 2020) If there’s such a thing as an “exact median” 1980s horror film, I would nominate Waxwork for the title: it’s a bit too good to be dismissed, but not good enough to be praised. It’s certainly attuned with the 1980s horror movie atmosphere, as it pays homage to everything that’s come before it, mixes all of those influences together, and even nods toward some of the decade’s other films. Plotting-wise, it feels like a blender full of homages, as teenagers exploring a creepy wax museum are… sucked into parallel dimensions to meet the real versions of the wax monsters, then have to… fight off an evil prophecy that would deliver the world to eighteen evil forces? What? Unable to keep an idea in head longer than it’s still interesting, writer-director Anthony Hickox flits from one horror trope to another, delivers his House of Wax homage, then (obviously, because that’s what happens in war museum horror films) burns everything up in time for the climax. Waxwork is, again, not terrible and not great but somewhere in the intermittently interesting middle. It will be far more interesting to fans of the genre more than neophytes.