A very funny line coming from 1988 considering that the musical was about to open on Broadway and had been a hit in London for several years. Of course there had been at least three versions to my knowledge of the classic horror tale up to that point with more to come including the movie of the musical. Veteran character actor David Warner is perfectly cast as the proprietor of a very strange wax museum that has very realistic displays a group of visiting teenagers step into the holographic displays and end up becoming a part of the exhibit in an alternative world. You've got the legend of the Wolfman, Dracula and his wives, the Marquis De Sade, and of course that creepy masked man that lived in the Paris sewers.
There's also the bossy little person who is Warner's butler, a Lurch/Frankenstein like valet and other assorted weirdo characters who pop in and out including a Nazi obsessed teacher and "All My Children's" Jennifer Bassey as the snooty mother of leading character Zach Galligan. He is lusting over a very loose classmate but finds love with the girl next door so there are a few romantic subplots to escape the gore. Another classic horror film, "The Mummy", gets a nice homage in an important twist in the film.
Those bloody scenes are actually very humorous so there's not much opportunity to be truly grossed out by it, simply amused, and that makes this more of a piece of art than your usual slasher film. It's obvious that the filmmakers had high regard for classic horror so they took modern sensibilities and told their stories their own way, and what occurs on screen really works and stands the test of time. This is probably one of the better classic horror films of the 1980's because it relies more on the mystery and the suspense rather than shocking and hideous carnage. I died laughing further when the young heroine in the film was revealed to be named Sarah Brightman, the real life lead in "Phantom" in London and later on Broadway.
There's also the bossy little person who is Warner's butler, a Lurch/Frankenstein like valet and other assorted weirdo characters who pop in and out including a Nazi obsessed teacher and "All My Children's" Jennifer Bassey as the snooty mother of leading character Zach Galligan. He is lusting over a very loose classmate but finds love with the girl next door so there are a few romantic subplots to escape the gore. Another classic horror film, "The Mummy", gets a nice homage in an important twist in the film.
Those bloody scenes are actually very humorous so there's not much opportunity to be truly grossed out by it, simply amused, and that makes this more of a piece of art than your usual slasher film. It's obvious that the filmmakers had high regard for classic horror so they took modern sensibilities and told their stories their own way, and what occurs on screen really works and stands the test of time. This is probably one of the better classic horror films of the 1980's because it relies more on the mystery and the suspense rather than shocking and hideous carnage. I died laughing further when the young heroine in the film was revealed to be named Sarah Brightman, the real life lead in "Phantom" in London and later on Broadway.