Waxwork (1988)

The special effects of Anthony Hickox's Waxwork were supervised by Bob Keen, who under the banner of Image Animation amassed a team of British effects artists; Paul Jones, Neill Gorton and Dave Elsey being some of the names among them. Hickox gave Keen the job due to them previously collaborating on a project 'Death Star' that, as far as I know, never got made.

Hickox conceived Waxwork as a 'monster mash' type film, but was quick to explain how different the design process for the monsters would be compared to the earlier Monster Squad, which he was quick to distance himself from;

'Remember, I've had a steady diet of Hammer horror films since I was 8 years old. That's been the main inspiration for Waxwork, although Dario Argento's Suspiria is still my biggest influence in life. So, although the creatures ae not based on any one movie, they are true to their legends. I've always felt that vampires are absolutely human-looking except for their teeth. I'm not a fan of the Nosferatu vampire at all. I wanted a very aristocratic, Christopher Lee vampire. I wanted Dracula's son to be based on Roman Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers. For the werewolf, we used The Howling type, not the Lon Chaney Jr. version.'

Bob Keen and his team had a particularly heavy workload, as not only did they have all the various monster makeups to realize but then the myriad gore effects! Keen spoke about the Waxwork experience;

'We had a partnership in designing the creatures. Tony asked me what could be done and like a fool I said, 'The world'. Really, the restrictions from Universal were a golden oppurtunity to do it our own way. Tony was already in the States rewriting the script, so I'd fax him designs and drawings. He'd call and generally just say, 'Cast them up'. Because we were shooting in the States, we had to have everything finished here in England and shipped over before the cameras started rolling. Consequently, we worked 18-hour days for about 8 weeks before we could leave.'

'Once in the States, the first scene we shot required the mummy to stamp on someone's head and squash it. Then the werewolf literally tears someone open from the top of his head to the base of his spin - just tears the guy in half and eats what's inside. It's a lovely family movie, you know? The zombie scene was a toughie, requiring about 20 effect gags including a mechanical hand, and it had to be shot all in one day.'

The various monsters were mostly realized as prosthetic makeups and rubber masks, with rubber sculpted gloves made for the alien as well. As the effects were all made in England, this meant they couldn't do life-casts of the American cast, so Keen worked around it;

'We didn't have the luxury of knowing who was going inside each creature. We had to make them in a wide as possible range. As we built the creatures in England, when we came to America, we then auditioned the parts and found who could wear each thing. It's very important that you can work with the people inside these costumes, cos if someone is not happy in there, you're not gonna get a performance out of them'.

The Mummy

The Frankenstein's Monster

The Golem

The deformed mad scientist

The alien

Mr Hyde and the witch were both realized as cable-controlled animatronic masks, with behind the scenes clips showing the facial movements better.

Mr Hyde

The witch

The snakeman (homaging 1966's The Reptile or 1973's Sssssss) was realized as a performer in prosthetic appliances over the torso and arms, as well as a cable-controlled animatronic head.

The snakeman head behind Bob Keen.

Two werewolves were made for Waxwork, the first being the more minimal design Dana Ashbrook transforms into. Judging by Hickox's love for Hammer horror, the makeup could have been inspired by makeup applied on Oliver Reed for Curse of the Werewolf. Air bladder prosthetics were also applied on Ashbrook's face for the transformation shot, homaging The Howling.

The Howling-inspired 'fully grown' werewolf was realized as a hair-punched rubber suit and a cable-controlled animatronic head with movable ears and face. Wearing the suit was animatronics engineer Steve Hardie, who did not enjoy the sequences in which he was almost burned by the flames during the shooting of the finale!

Sources:

• Fangoria #78 'Making the Waxwork' by Larry Barsky
  
• Assorted behind the scenes featurettes.