Waxwork (1988)

Six friends are invited to a midnight showing at a wax museum. Once there, they each decide to wander off from the group alone (of course) and have a closer look at the various displays by stepping into each scene. Bad choice, for once you cross that little red rope separating you from the wax display, you are transported into that scene. For example, one kid who drops his lighter in a werewolf scene steps over the rope to retrieve the lighter and is sucked into the display, where of course he is devoured by the creature. You get the idea. There are tons of displays featuring everything from vampires to zombies and back again. And as usual, every character finds some dumb reason to take a closer look....thus becoming monster fodder. The waxork is really a tool of the devil ran by some guy who sold his soul, I guess for the sole reason of running a wax museum for eternity. The story implies that he has to feed six people to the displays from three different towns (666, get it?) in order for the displays to become truly alive and take over the world. The thing I enjoyed the most about this one was that there was tons of cool looking monsters, and the special effects were really pretty good. I particularly loved the werewolf creature and many of the scenes were pretty gory, though in a cartoony way. My main problem though, was that none of the characters really appealed to me. They all seemed to annoying or snobby. Even the ones you are supposed to like (the guy from Gremlins and Muffy from April Fools Day) just did not seem very likeable as the heroes. Maybe it was just me, I don't know. "Waxwork" is an ok timewaster though not much more than that.