#19 - The Wax Mask (1997)
(dir. Sergio Stivaletti)
This is basically a remake of House of Wax, set in Paris in the early 20th century. A young girl is a witness to a horrifying murder, in which the victim's heart was literally ripped out of his chest by a man with a metal hand. 12 years later, she gets a job designing costumes in a new wax museum, where an eccentric artist creates wax models that are incredibly lifelike and arranges them in violent tableaux. People start disappearing, and you can probably guess why.
This film was produced by Dario Argento, who also wrote the story along with Lucio Fulci and the considerably less famous Daniele Stroppa. This was the final film that Fulci worked on - he was set to direct but died a few weeks before filming began, so special effects artist Sergio Stivaletti took over the role instead. Stylistically, this feels a bit like an Argento film crossed with a Hammer period piece, with the occasional Fulci-style extreme gore thrown in. Despite being from the late '90s, a lot of it feels very much like an Italian horror film from the '70s, featuring things like horrible ADR and poorly written female characters who do little but faint and whimper. It does generally look really nice though, and the special effects are mostly great (except for some bad computerized bits). The story isn't too original, but it does get weird enough towards the end to be a lot of fun.
If you're into Italian horror I think there is a lot to like here. It's probably better than anything else Argento has been involved with since the early '90s, although I know that's faint praise. It's not an amazing film, but it's trashy and gory and weird, and I kind of loved it.
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