Is Wax Mask Treasure or Trash?

Blu-ray Distributed By Severin / September 24, 2019

In the mid-‘90s, Dario Argento approached a physically and professionally ailing Lucio Fulci to direct one final production, an over-the-top shocker about grisly murders at a Paris wax museum. But when Fulci passed away only weeks before filming began, Argento turned to Sergio Stivaletti – the FX genius on PHENOMENA, OPERA, DEMONS and CEMETARY MAN – to make his feature-directing debut. Original Grand Guignol director/performer Robert Hossein (RIFFIFI) and Aldo Massasso (CONTRABAND) star in what DVD Drive-In hails as “old-timey luridness married to state-of-the-art gore” – from a screenplay co-written by Fulci with cinematography by Sergio Salvati (ZOMBIE, THE BEYOND) – now featuring a 4k scan from the original negative supervised by Stivaletti and packed with Special Features that include rare behind-the-scenes footage, all-new interviews and more.  

Travis’s Take (3 / 5)

My first reaction to this release of Wax Mask is that 1997 sets off warning bells for any Italian genre film. That is long past the glory days of Italian horror so I was a bit cautious, but then I saw it was directed Sergio Stivaletti and partially written by the legends Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. That is certainly worth a watch.

This begins with a dedication to Fulci (check out our view of his 1982 gem New York Ripper) since he had died during pre-production of the film, then jumps into Paris of 1900. It has somewhat of a “modern” look to the movie, more video-like than film, it did retain the richness of sets, costumes, and camera movements so it had my attention. Then it had some really dodgy CGI firework effects which had me again dreaded a potential pile of 90’s era shit. Thankfully two people get murdered pretty quickly and the aftereffect make-up looked like classic Italian grue. Crisis averted.

The movie then flash forwards a few years, and roughly follows the plot of every movie that involves a wax museum. If you’ve seen one you know what you are going to get, so no need to expand on that too much. Of course this is exactly what Fulci and Argento were intending, which is nice since half the time an Italian horror film makes no damn sense. So while there are some flashbacks, red herrings, and plot tangents you can always be assured that the wax statues used to be people so the audience just has to try to guess who is the doing the killing and shellacking of people. It’s not really that hard to figure out either, so this is pretty straightforward. So the question then becomes how effective this is as a genre/exploitation film?

It was interesting to learn that splatmaster Fulci who was going for more atmosphere, when Argento wanted to ramp up the gore. The movie does kind of split the difference, in that there is some gore (including one solid set piece) but it’s not overly grisly with the kills. It does not shy away from the nudity though. There are fat Italian cans all over the place, which made my braciole happy. There is one set of knockers that felt like they belonged to an actress who looked a tad young, so beware! What was unexpected was the influence of The Terminator during the finale. It’s Italian, just roll with it. Given that this is a very late stage release before the film market completely died in Italy, Wax Mask is pretty entertaining. The period setting gives it an almost Hammer feel, but with amped up prurient content.

The picture on this disc is great, so no complaints there. Since this is a new scan, there is no way it is not an upgrade on the previous One 7 Movies release. There is an option to watch this dubbed or subtitled, which since Italian movies typically dub everything after the fact I’m usually ok with an English dub. There is the option of 2.0 or 5.1 soundtrack, which I spent probably too long switching back and forth to get a sense of each sound mix. Frankly I preferred the 2.0, which I thought kept the focus where it should be versus splitting the soundtrack and adding superfluous effects.

My major grip is in regards to the bonus features. What initially looks like a generous amount of extras in reality is only three items. The first is an audio commentary, but then there are seven interviews that in reality should have been cut together in a single coherent feature. This means you get to sit though seven sets of credits, which had me reaching for the FF button. That makes “two” bonus, the charitable “third” would be cutting together the behind the scenes footage into it’s own chapter. With some editing these could have even been included with the interviews to consolidate things further. But then that wouldn’t make the disc as feature packed, would it? Then to not even provide a trailer seems like an obvious miss. I hope this isn’t a trend going forward.

Hidden Treasure/Dumpster Fire?

Travis says: Hidden Treasure!

Travis's Take:	(3.0 / 5)
Blu-ray Extras:	(2.0 / 5)
Average:	(2.5 / 5)

Special Features: 

• • Audio Commentary with Director/Special Effects Artist Sergio Stivaletti and Michelangelo Stivaletti
  • Beyond Fulci: Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti, Producer Giuseppe Columbo, Production Designer Massimo Geleng, Actress Gabriella Giorgelli and Filmmaker Claudio Fragasso
  • The Chamber of Horrors: Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti, Producer Giuseppe Columbo, Production Designer Massimo Geleng and Actress Gabriella Giorgelli
  • Living Dolls:  Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti, Producer Giuseppe Columbo and Actress Gabriella Giorgelli
  • The Mysteries of the Wax Museum:  Interview with SFX Artist Sergio Stivaletti
  • The Waxworks Symphony:  Interview with Soundtrack Composer Maurizio Abeni
  • The Grand Opening:  Interviews with Producer Dario Argento, Director Sergio Stivaletti and Producer Giuseppe Columbo
  • Wax Unmasked: Interview with Film Writer Alan Jones
  • Vintage Featurettes: Behind the Scenes, Special Effects, On Set with Dario Argento
  • 5.1 and 2.0 English and Italian Audio
  • English with Closed Captioning, Italian with English Subtitles