Spanish filmmaker Víctor Matellano’s Wax bears more similarity to 1953’s classic House of Wax than 2005’s official remake. With one foot planted firmly in horror cinema’s past, Matellano uses his other to sidestep between the decidedly more contemporary subgenres of found footage and torture porn. There’s room for all — perhaps even too much, as not enough time is allocated to each or any.

What is in too-great supply are the unruly curls atop the head of journalist Mike (Jimmy Shaw, Lord of Illusions), a dead ringer for Simply Red lead singer Mick Hucknall. Eager for cash, Mike is hired by a TV producer (Geraldine Chaplin, 2010’s The Wolfman) to spend the night — if he can! — in a reportedly haunted Barcelona wax museum. Hence the title and all.

Mike’s still grieving over the murder of his wife and child by kidnapper-cum-cannibal Dr. Knox (Jack Taylor, Succubus) a year prior and — wouldn’t you know it? — the sinister senior surgeon lurks and stalks the halls after hours. In the basement is where the old man carries out his acts of Hostel behavior on his victims (most of them bare-breasted young women), keeping them sedated just enough for them to withstand the pain of being eaten alive as they watch.

Essentially, we have three distinct styles of shock shoehorned into a film that feels like it can’t pay homage to one without placating today’s audiences with doses of the others. Because of that, Wax fails to truly take hold, although it comes close. Still, if you are a fan of movies set in wax museums — and this one takes a meta step to share that pleasure — the film is worth the price of admission, and the feature-debuting Matellano proves himself as a talent to watch. Just don’t be suckered into a rental because of the touting of late Spanish fright-flick legend Paul Naschy high atop the credits; only his voice appears, none of it recorded for this low-budget, high-ambition project. —Rod Lott

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Poor, picked-upon Pvt. Coopersmith unleashes some serious satanic comeuppance on his classmates in Evilspeak, a computer-aided variation on Brian De Palma’s classic Carrie. Orphaned after his parents’ death in an auto accident, Coopersmith (Clint Howard, Ice Cream Man) is the opposite of Big Man on Campus at the military academy where he is so despised by his soccer teammates that the coach actually insinuates they take him out so they could have a chance at winning a game for once.

A loser for life, Coopersmith finds salvation in the form of a dusty tome full of black-magic rituals he seeks to conduct in the comfort of his own dormitory basement. With the help of a personal computer one notch above the power of a Radio Shack TRS-80, he summons the vengeful spirit of Estaban (Richard Moll, aka Bull from TV’s Night Court), not to mention demonic, man-eating pigs. Oink!

The directorial debut of Hyenas‘ Eric Weston, Evilspeak moves surprisingly slow for an exploitation film, but Howard keeps its head above water. His nervous, gosh-oh-golly-gee-whiz demeanor hardly makes for a note-perfect performance, but he’s so believable as the used-and-abused nerd that an introverted viewer really will feel for the guy — both the character and the actor. Evilspeak‘s cult following seems to be a case of overstatement — after all, better possession pictures exist from the VHS era — but we’ll chalk its popularity up to the relatability of the social outcast/underdog. —Rod Lott

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The bad news: At March College, two students have been murdered, including the first-string quarterback. The good news: At rival Lanier College, a fraternity guy realizes, “We might be able to take them this year” in football. The bad news: The killer then makes his way to Lanier.

The worst news: Final Exam is a failed attempt at cashing in on the slasher wake in the wake of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Because the similar campus chiller Graduation Day already claimed the calendar name, writer/director Jimmy Huston (My Best Friend Is a Vampire) goes with an event bursting with double entendre. The wit ends with that title.

Lanier is an institution of hair-helmeted young people, some of whose lives are cut short by the blade of a silent hulk (Timothy A. Raynor, putting in overtime as the film’s fight coordinator) with no apparent motive. To be consistent with that act of lazy storytelling, Huston gives his characters little semblance of characterization. Viewers will be unable to tell who the lead is, simply because none exists.

Although Final Exam may be the only slasher to depict an act of terrorism as a Greek-system prank, the movie redefines routine, standing at the head of the class only to be ridiculed as the worst of its kind. —Rod Lott

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Every two-bit tropical island needs a health center, right? Peace Corps good guy Jim Farrell (John Ashley, Beyond Atlantis) thinks so! Brides of Blood boats Jim o’er to ol’ Blood Island — name not official — with Dr. Henderson (Kent Taylor, The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues) and the doc’s young, hot wife (Beverly Powers, The Comedy of Terrors).

Dr. Henderson is going for another reason: The isle sits on the fringe of the range of atomic tests from the 1940s, causing some mutations. We’re talking land crabs, banana trees whose branches move like tentacles, shapeshifting butterflies, exploding flowers — you name it.

And then there’s the creature to whom topless natives are sacrificed. If you can imagine that Swamp Thing were created by Sid and Marty Krofft, but they couldn’t afford a movable mouth, you’ve got a good grasp on the where the needle points here: straight to the Bs! Fans of the stool-loose Blood Island series, of which the Philippines-lensed Bride is part one, wouldn’t have it any other way. —Rod Lott

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I’ve seen enough movies to know that if you receive a sizable sum from a bank account with the numbers “666,” Something Is Up. In The Legacy, an interior-design team gets such a deposit to the tune of $50,000 — an advance payment for a project whose particulars go undisclosed, beyond that a trip to England is required. Something Is Up.

After arriving in the UK, Margaret (Katharine Ross, The Graduate) and her partner/lover, Pete (Sam Elliott, Hulk), are involved in a motorcycle accident and taken to a remote countryside estate for a cup of tea and cleanup. The kind gesture threatens to turn into an eternity when Margaret and Pete find their every effort to leave the premises quashed, as if a conspiracy prevents an exit. Plus, a nun lives there. Something Is Up.

Worse, the other guests — The Who’s Roger Daltrey among them — start to die horrific deaths, and their host is some sort of bedridden demon with claw-like hands in need of a manicure and serious moisturizing. Something Is Up. While that may not be an individual viewer’s pulse, The Legacy nonetheless boasts several creative kill sequences, courtesy of director Richard Marquand (Return of the Jedi) and co-scripter Jimmy Sangster, who specialized in penning the type of Hammer Films product (i.e. Fear in the Night) this modern-day Gothic exercise emulates, more successfully than not.

Produced at the wane of the 1970s’ satanic-panic subgenre in horror (see: The Omen, The Sentinel, Race with the Devil and so on), The Legacy is good enough to deserve not being forgotten. One cannot say the same for the sore-thumb ballad serving as the film’s theme song, warbled with MOR saccharine by Kiki Dee. What Was Up? —Rod Lott

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