5 Demented Wax Museum Horror Movies
Chambers of Horror
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Wax museums are inherently eerie which, of course, make them excellent horror settings. I’m surprised that there aren’t more wax museum horror movies. Few settings are more creepy than a place where you’re surrounded by creepy lifelike wax figures, especially at night. That goes double for the museums that have chamber of horror sections.
This underrated subgenre dates back to Mystery at the Wax Museum (1933). Another notable relatively early example was the original House of Wax (1953), starring horror legend Vincent Price. Wax museum horror movies started to gain more traction in the ’70s, which is the decade that a couple of the films below hail from.
It’s been years since I visited a wax museum, but they made an indelible impression on me as a kid. I remember visiting The Wax Works in Newport, Oregon, and seeing their spooky collection of figures, including, most memorably, Bigfoot.
Here’s five demented wax museum horror movies ranked. I enjoyed all of them for the most part. Usually there’s at least one rotten apple when i write these lists, but these movies all have their strong points.
5. House of Wax (2005)
House of Wax is one of those horror flicks that was hated at first but has built up a cult following over the years. Somehow, I never got around to watching it until recently.
A group of friends are on their way to a football game. Their car breaks down in a rural area and they end up in a desolate town populated with the usual creepy hick caricatures. The town’s main feature is an eerie wax museum with figures that look remarkably like human corpses. Gee, wonder why.
This movie is best known for starring Paris Hilton, although she only appears in a few scenes. Her performance is actually decent for someone who’s not a professional actor. Although Hilton’s role was emphasized in the marketing, Elisha Cuthbert gets far more screentime. She plays the movie’s final girl, Carly, who discovers a sinister local conspiracy after her boyfriend mysteriously vanishes.
House of Wax is closer to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Wrong Turn than a conventional wax museum horror movie, and it has the typical dreary bland aesthetic of 2000s horror movies. Still, Cuthbert makes an appealing heroine and there’s plenty of funny moments. Don’t watch this if you want a serious horror film, but it works pretty well as camp.
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4. Terror in the Wax Museum (1973)
In 1890s London, a wax museum owner is found murdered inside his museum. A detective is determined to find the culprit. Suspects abound. Was he killed by his mentally challenged assistant? A business rival? His niece, who has inherited the museum?
Or maybe something supernatural is occurring. The museum’s chamber of horrors section is spearheaded by Jack the Ripper, the notorious unidentified serial killer who terrorized London in the late 19th century. According to some witnesses, the Ripper figure has a nasty habit of coming to life and attacking people. Or perhaps it’s the real Ripper returning to continue his rampage?
Terror in the Wax Museum is an old fashioned whodunit with a heavy emphasis on detective work. This is easily the least violent of the wax museum horror movies on this list and it will be too dry and slow for many modern viewers.
It held my interest. If you enjoy history, especially Victorian England and/or Jack the Ripper, check this out. It mixes thriller police procedural elements with the fun cheesiness of old Hammer movies.
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3. Wax Mask (1997)
Wax Mask began as a joint collaboration between giallo legends Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. After Fulci’s death in 1996, Argento hired special effects artist Sergio Stivaletti to direct the film while remaining heavily involved himself.
A masked black-gloved serial killer terrorizes a wax museum in 1912 Rome. He commits a serious of extremely gory murders and often uses a metal claw hand to eviscerate his victims. Like Terror in the Wax Museum, this is a period piece and a whodunit that takes inspiration from cheesy old Hammer horror films. However, this one massively ramps up the violence and nudity.
Frankly, Wax Mask has two things in abundance: blood and boobs. Argento may not have directed this himself, but it’s clearly his work. His fascinations with beautiful women and gory murder are on full display.
There’s something endearing about how shamelessly gratuitous this movie is. It isn’t Argento’s best work, not by a long shot, but it’s entertaining enough. Suspension of disbelief is definitely required to enjoy this one, especially during the insanely over the top ending.
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2. Waxwork (1988)
Waxwork is the most creative movie on this list. In this movie’s wax museum, patrons who make contact with the displays are transported to parallel universes where the figures are alive. This might be okay if the figures were Fred Rogers or Mother Theresa, but this is a horror wax museum with werewolves, zombies, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Phantom of the Opera, and much more.
If you’re not careful, you could end up fighting a werewolf, getting seduced and tortured by the Marquis de Sade, or trapped in a castle with vampires. If you die, you end up as a wax figure yourself.
A group of ill-fated college students are invited to visit the museum with predictably deadly results. The story eventually focuses on Mark (Zach Galligan) and Sarah (Deborah Foreman), who are desperately trying to escape.
Waxwork has been a favorite of mine for a long time. It’s innovative, the characters are fun, and the set pieces are intriguing. It’s rare for a horror movie to feature such a wide variety of monsters. Galligan and Foreman are very good together.
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1. Tourist Trap (1979)
Tourist Trap is about a group of road tripping friends who happen upon a wacky wax museum while traveling through the desert. Final girl Molly (Jocelyn Jones) and her companions meet the owner, Mr. Slausen (Chuck Connors), an eccentric recluse. The owner is always portrayed as a weirdo in these movies. I guess you’d have to be pretty strange to want to own a wax museum.
What starts as a mild diversion from their long journey turns into a day of terror for Molly and Co. as they realize that the museum is not what it seems.
This movie throws everything and the kitchen sink at us. How many films have eerie wax figures, creepy mannequins, and a serial killer with telekinetic abilities ? It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does.
Tourist Trap has plenty of unforgettable moments, including a disturbingly realistic-looking sequence in which a victim drowns in wax. This creepy scene is rivaled by the film’s demented ending, which truly must be seen to be believed.
This surreal early slasher remains a bizarre oddity that has never been replicated. It has a strange eerie magic that sets it apart, and that lands it in the #1 spot in my wax museum horror movies list.
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