Undescribable Perfection

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Absolutely the worst movie.

Often cited as the first self-referential horror movie, 1988's Waxwork had everything that a horror movie fan might love: full of horror film references, over the top gorn, and amazingly accurate & professional looking sets & costumes. Considering the films low budget and campy factor, the movie was a surprising semi-successful movie when it came out. Due to this success, a sequel came out in 1992, call Waxwork 2: Lost in Time. It follows nearly that same escapism formula, but unlike the first film, it didn't take itself, too serious as it play off with the comedy, a lot more. Directed and written by Anthony Hickox, yet again, Waxwork 2 takes place immediately after the first film, Waxworks, with a recap and replay of the last moments of the film with reused footage. Then the movie kinda starts with an reenactment of final scenes with Mark Loftmore (Zack Galligan) and Sarah Brightman (Monika Schnarre) leaving the burning waxwork. Seeking revenge for the fire that cause the destruction to the Waxwork, a disembodied wax hand goes on a murderous rage and kills Sarah's father. Mark and Sarah manage to kill the creature, but the police don't believe them and accuse Sarah for killer her abusive father. Since, Sarah's case looks bad, both seek a way to prove her innocence by searching Sir Wilfred's (Patrick Macnee) place. Instead, of having the couple find another waxwork building, the movie goes a different route, by having the two characters find a magic compass that allows them to travel through another dimension call 'Cartagra' consisting of horror, sci-fi and fantasy stories that have want to become realities. Most of these sequences are pretty clever on how they were able to paid homage to the many horror films without breaking copy-rights laws. The crew of the Waxwork 2 change some of the other film references character's names, location or in many ways, redesigning the look of the creatures to make sure, it looks different, but has the same style as the original film. They all get a new treatment, but you can tell what film references, the movie is showing. Examples are 1931's Frankenstein, 1963's The Haunting, 1922's Nosferatu, 1941's Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, 1954's Godzilla, 1979's Alien and 1978's Dawn of the Dead. According to the movie exposition, these worlds comprise worlds where God and the devil battle over the fate of the world, each victory being reflected in events occurring in the real world. When Mark or Sarah appear in each reality, they take on the persona of characters in those stories. They often act like their character personalities and memories until they regain their senses. It's weird that plot, only makes one person forget, who they are; while the other, never forgets. Mark always knows that he's Mark when he enter the world, but Sarah always get lost in the sequence character roles. I know, that Sarah does this in the first movie, but gees… its way over killed, here. Mark had to wake her up, like 3 to 4 times, before she rejoin her conscious and her original memories. It's so annoying! Sarah is still the same stupid damsel in distress character with the emo attitude that makes her easily fall in love, with her abusers like the first movie. This movie made me, hate her character, even more, due to the new actress, playing her. Monika Schnarre is worse than the original actress, Deborah Foreman. She looks out of place, most of the time, due to her stunning model like looks, and awkward European accent. Zack Galligan as Mark is a little better than the previous film. I glad, they cut the jerk attitude of his, and made him into a more adventure driven type of a stock character. The supporting characters are pretty fun to have. David Carradine appears out of nowhere and gives absolutely straight and deadly serious, performance. He's a great actor. He brings a lot of weight to the character that he would have lacked otherwise. Alexander Godunov as Scarabus was very scary, and insidious. Well played. Bruce Campbell as John Loftmore had the comedy cuts and gave the movie, some charm by hamming it up. The movie is full of cheesy dialogue and he deliver on it. The movie comedy is a hit or a miss. It breaks a lot of four wall jokes, but none of it, seem that clever. Watching this movie with a group of friends is a real treat, and it was fun to just try and pick out all the references like 1981's Raiders of Lost Ark, 1977's Saturday Night Fever, 1982's Friday the 13th Part III, 1968's 2001: Space Odyssey, 1989's Back to the Future Part 2, and others. I love the action. The swordfight through multi-worlds was fun. As a movie of logic, it really fails in that. First off, why would Sarah's trial allow her to go anywhere, if she's a suspected for a death? I doubt, she was able to get bait. Another thing, why on earth, do they need to find evidence so that they can prove that she didn't do it; if she just going to escape and follow Mark into exploring the Cartagra, in the end. It's pretty pointless. The call for adventure is a pretty weak plot. Another thing, how can she get a package from Mark with the compass, if Cartagra isn't part of the real world!?! It's doesn't make sense. To make it more confusing, Jack the Ripper, a real life killer is in Cartagara. Just think of that. It's yet another Waxwork movie that can't follow its own rules. I know its nit-picky, but it's too jarring even for this silly film. I like how the movie doesn't match the title. There are barely any Wax works figures in this movie, at all. Overall: While the plot is pretty bad. It's a fun movie. Just turn off your brain when watching.

The sequel stars off right where the first movie ended, but a dismembered hand follows Sarah home and kills her step father. Because nobody believes Sarah's hand story, she is facing jail time. Mark takes Sarah on a journey to find some type of proof to clear Sarah of the charges. This was a pretty decent sequel that was actually funnier than the first. Whereas the original had dark humor, this one has more slapstick humor like Evil Dead II and Dead Alive. Ironically, Bruce Campbell has a part in this movie. It wasn't a big role, but it was very memorable and humorous. There is one thing I was not happy about; the recasting of Sarah. I really don't like when a character is recast, but it makes it worse when the new actor looks completely different. Monika does do a decent job overall. There are some memorable spoofs like House on Haunted Hill, Alien, and Frankenstein. A decent portion of the movie takes place in a medieval land that reminded me of the alternate dimension introduced in the second season of Angel, Pylea. Maybe Joss Whedon was inspired from this movie. The effects are also better, not big studio movie better, but improved from the first. If you liked the first one, you will definitely like this.

"Waxwork II: Lost in Time" is a woefully unimpressive sequel after a great original entry.**SPOILERS**After a murder trial, Mark Loftmore, (Zach Galligan) and Sarah Brightman, (Monika Schnarre) learn that they have inherited a mansion from an old friend. Discovering a time-traveling trinket, they are suddenly whisked away into other dimensions and travel to meet others throughout history. Jumping from universe to universe, and encountering various personas and barely escaping from them finally leads them into the hands of Scarabis, (Alexander Godunov) a ruthless king in a distant past who is using an assortment of black magic to take over the various time dimensions. Learning that they can fight back against his powers, as they have been selected to fight for the side of good over evil in an epic struggle, and once they have accomplished the feat, can go back into their time. Using this, they set out to stop the evil forces out to get them and return back to their time.The Good News: This one here didn't have a whole lot of great parts to it. The fact that it does have a large amount of influences from other films of the past make it rather fun at times. From respectful homages to the classics of the past, including one of a silent film that comes complete with cards indicating dialogue and old-time acting which comes off incredibly well, to one that's done in black-and-white, exactly like the one it's parodying, there's some really great fun to have from the homages in here. Even better is a little part inside a shopping mall overrun with zombies, which will be immediately visible to most out there, and the insertion of the new action into the story comes off like a charm. All of these here are really fun, and get some energy and life into the film. The gore in here also works, and although it's not as messy as the first one, there's enough in here to satisfy. From scenes of people getting their heads blown apart with gunshots, limbs hacked off with swords, there's a great decapitation and a head explosion as well as a fist rammed through the back and comes out the front, as well as much more in here. From the cheesy goodness some of the scenes display, there's some really nice stuff in here that make the film entertaining.The Bad News: This one here was a really underwhelming entry in the series. One of the biggest problems here is that so much of the film is taken up with scenes that just spread the film out, as it's easily ten minutes too long here. From the trial to the extended chase through haunted house segment in here, there's a lot of extra scenes in here which make the film an extra long time. The Mediaeval episode is the film's longest, least connected and most pointless sequence, as it's obvious that it wants to turn the film around into a sword-and-sorcery romp here. There's no horror at all, and from the different homages here, the low amount of scares in here make for some non-horrific viewing here. Mainly this is due to the fact that there's not a whole lot of horror homages in here, and instead it decides to go for more of a fantasy and science-fiction related scenes that don't offer up a lot of scare-potential. That alone is one of the film's bigger flaws, which makes for some even worse times when it's a sequel to the earlier entry which was packed with that amount of stuff. The last flaw is the really confusing and irrational way the plot intercepts each other. Rather than having a clear-cut manner for how the first one went about business, this one decides to do the other manner in an even worse manner by just having them jump around from time period to time period, with no explanation given that it got that way to begin with. It's pretty hard to figure out, and combined with the big flaws in here, comprise this one's biggest problems.The Final Verdict: Without a whole lot of good points and some really big flaws present, this one here is a really woeful sequel after the fun of the first one. If you can get past the flaws, this one can be fun if in the right mood, otherwise then just stick to the original if you think the flaws here would be too much.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity

Waxwork 2 (1992) * 1/2 (out of 4) Waxwork 2 has very little to do with the first film and how the two are tired together is fairly weak. The two survivors from the first film think they are safe but a hand escaped the wax museum and followed them home. That night the hand kills Sarah's stepfather and she is accused for the murder, which also ties her to the wax museum so she is changed with killing those people. The court isn't buying the hand thing so Sarah along with Mark must travel back in time to collect evidence to clear her.This here is where the film takes off but instead of wax figures we are dealt several short stories that try to pay homage to previous horror classics. The first adventure has the due battling Dr. Frankenstein and his deformed monster. Up next we get a spoof of Robert Wise's The Haunting as well as a Aliens spin. Dawn of the Dead, Nosferatu, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Jack the Ripper are amongst the spoofs here. The film pays homage to at least fifteen other horror classics as well.I'm really not sure what to say about Waxwork 2. For starters, the film is pretty much far away from the original film so I'm guessing the title was just thrown on there to attract fans of the first film. This film has some very good moments but the thing simply runs way too long. This movie should have ran no longer than 80-minutes but instead we get 105-minutes worth of spoofs, which sometimes work but more often than not they fall flat on their face. There's some gory action, which is fun but we've still got way too much to sit through just for that. Fans of the Evil Dead series will enjoy the cameo by Bruce Campbell.