Waxwork (1988)

Waxwork, starring Zach Galligan (Gremlins), David Warner (dual-role in MST3K's Quest of the Delta Knights), and the little person who played "Alf", is a conundrum.  It is simultaneously a light-hearted, romp through horror's history that felt a bit like a kid's movie - featuring appearances by Dracula, the Mummy, Romero-style zombies, and so forth - and a bloody, gory mess.

A group of snobby rich kids, including Zachy-G's "Mark" (who we are supposed to like, but we don't) stumble upon a "waxwork" that has opened for business in the middle of their residential neighborhood.  Their first question is not "what the hell is a 'waxwork,'" but, "How soon can we go in and see all the exhibits rather than going out and spending our daddies' money on cars?"

So in they go to marvel at the lifelike vignettes of horror scenes. A couple of them decide to go in for a closer look, so they cross the velvet ropes and find themselves transported Narnia-style to a dimension (or something) that brings their particular wax scenes to deadly life. The first winds up bitten by a werewolf John Rhys-Davies (who tears apart another victim in spectacularly gory fashion). The second finds herself the object of desire for Dracula (played by MST3K alum Miles O'Keefe). She winds up bitten by the Count, but not before running across a fellow that I took to be playing the Keanu Reeves/Johnathan Harker role. This poor unfortunate soul was chained to a white stone table in a clean white room, where Dracula's brides (and some rate) feasted on his defleshed leg. Wow.

Ooo, nasty. Dracula's house has rats.

Anyway, Mark and friends notice that their buddies are missing sometime the next day and set about trying a rescue. Evidently the waxwork owner (Warner) needs 18 victims to be killed in the wax scenes by the 18 most evil beings in the world, at which time the evil (wax) beings will come to life in the real world and take it over. Somehow.

Honestly, I lost track of the convoluted plot. Whatever was supposed to be going on, it all culminated in a sword-swinging battle with all 18 evil beings (really more, if you count individual zombies) going up against our two main heroes and a small army of elderly people. Yes.

So yes, Waxwork is kindof of a mess, but at least it has quite a few classic horror monsters and quite a lot of surprisingly epic gore. It would be fun to track down the uncut version.