Best movie ever!

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Gothic horror has a major place in world cinema that goes back to the silent era and continues to this day. The idea of dark streets of mostly European cities (usually foggy London) stirs the imagination to come up with all sorts of grizzly acts of every type of nefarious nature. In this case, it is the setting of a horror museum which features all sorts of wax figures reflecting notable historical figures and other notorious members of society who were more known for their murderous ways rather than being world leaders or contributors to the art world. It is the second batch of wax figures that this film deals mainly with, particularly the recently missing Jack the Ripper, still notorious to the Scotland Yard inspectors who were unable to figure out who he was, and for museum proprietor John Carradine, the presence of Jack's wax figure is enough to stir up tons of nightmares. After one such particular nightmare, he meets his fate at the hands of Jack's apparent walking wax corpse, and this brings in his niece Nicole Shelby and her companion (an over the top Elsa Lanchester) as the apparent heirs to his beloved business, managed by the rather cranky Ray Milland.A cast of veterans supports the top-billed Milland and Lanchester, with brash Broderick Crawford, 1940's heartthrob Louis Hayward, Shakespearean master Maurice Evans and former handsome leading man Patric Knowles in fine form, and "Oliver's" Shani Wallis singing repeatedly the same music hall song as if she was an early 1900's version of Nancy Sikes from Dicken's classic. This is a top notch mix of horror and comedy, perfectly entertaining but probably easy to figure out for most and thus quickly forgettable. Steven Marlo emulates the Hunchback of Notre Dame as the pathetic Karkov, a mute but sweet half wit who holds undying love for the kindly Shelby, one of the few people to treat him with tenderness. His presence in Carradine's basement and frequent appearance under a sewer grate is often horrifying for its amazing cruelty, and thus he ends up being the heart and soul of this film. A great gothic atmosphere also helps bring this above average, but unfortunately, that's not enough to change its predictability. The horror isn't in its garishness, but in the not knowing of what's going to come next, and that makes the frequent usage of comedy within the film somewhat distracting.

I guess that, for me, "Terror in the Wax Museum" is a guilty pleasure in the purest definition of the term. The ratings are abysmal, the reviews are terrible and from every possible objective viewpoint it's undeniably a weak and incompetent film, but still I LOVE IT! Can't help myself; this is simply the type of cheesy trash that turned me into a horror fanatic in the first place! It's typically and low-budget early 70s stuff, complete with a cast full of stars on their return, a poorly recreated Victorian setting and an absurdly grotesque plot! Claude Dupree runs a wax museum in the center of London around the turn of the 20th century. It's not a boring one like Madame Tussaud's, mind you, but a wax museum that only exhibits notorious monsters and madmen, like Lizzie Borden, Bluebeard and - of course - local legend Jack the Ripper. Although Dupree is proud of his life's work and addicted to his wax creations, he seriously considers selling the museum following a generous offer from a wealthy American. When Dupree is found stabbed to death with the Ripper's knife, Scotland Yard has several suspects to keep an eye on, like Dupree's surly associate, the greedy governess of his cute niece or the impatient American buyer. And then there's also Karkov, of course, Dupree's hideously deformed deaf-mute assistant who lives in museum's basement and who would be send to an institution in case of a sale. While the young Scotland Yard inspector investigates the case (and particularly Dupree's cute niece), the museum is making its biggest profits ever and the killer plots to strike again. "Terror in the Wax Museum" is genuine shlock, with images of giant tubs of bubbling wax, freaks grabbing ladies' feet from within the cellar hideout and lewd prostitutes losing their heads at the guillotine! Sue me, but I find this a lot more amusing than 90% of other so-called superior and pretentious horror movies. Evidently, I can't defend the film too fanatically, neither. Just to illustrate, similarly themed films like "House of Wax" (1953) and "Mystery of the Wax Museum" (1933) are several decades older but look less dated, more professional and better scripted. The cast is stupendous, at least if you're into old B-horror. John Carradine stars as the curator, Ray Milland is the exaggeratedly suspicious associate and Elsa Lancaster (the "Bride of Frankenstein" herself) appears as the utterly insupportable governess. In the same year, director Georg Fenady also made "Arnold", which is an equally enjoyable and unjustly overlooked horror comedy. Finally, I really liked how the script fooled around with the Jack the Ripper connection. The events supposedly take place 10 years after The Ripper committed his last murder and, as everyone knows, the case remained unsolved. Although the nature of these crimes clearly aren't his style, the script still cleverly hints that The Ripper is a possible suspect.

Terror in the Wax Museum is more murder mystery than it is a horror film. With plenty of suspects and one red herring at the very end, the movie keeps you guessing whodunit throughout. It's not horribly scary, therefore it's the mystery aspect that will keep you watching.There are definitely some silly moments, such as a couple of dream sequences and wax figures (played by actors) that are accidentally caught on-screen moving and breathing. However, don't let that distract you from the solid work from the cast, especially Ray Milland. The story itself has its moments of suspense, with a few chilling scenes. Overall, however, don't go into this film thinking it will scare you very much. Recommended for lovers of good old-fashioned whodunits.

This was a great old movie, with a stellar cast of veteran horror actors. The pace is nice, the story holds together, and it was all done without CGI, gratuitous violence, or sex and nudity for the sake of it. I missed this film when it first aired when I was a kid, and enjoyed the chance to watch it now. If you like old house mysteries, this is an excellent example of the genre, and great for when you just want to relax with a good old movie.