Nightmare in Wax (1969)
** (out of 4)
Former actor Vincent Renard (Cameron Mitchell) had to put his acting career on hold after his lover's jealous boyfriend burned his face beyond recognition. Vincent, being the good guy he is, didn't let this deformity get him down. Instead of lying around doing nothing, Vincent decided to open a max museum to display various celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Elizabeth Taylor. However, there's also a special section devoted to recently missing actors who in fact are the real victims killed by Vincent himself.
It's quite clear this is another takeoff on Mystery of the Wax Museum, which was also remade by Vincent Price in House of Wax. Both of those films are highly entertaining mysteries but that's not the case for Nightmare in Wax, which comes off more of a hack job than anything else. Unlike the previous two films however, this one here allowed some more graphic death scenes including the wonderfully bloody disfiguration of Vincent himself, running around with blood gushing from his eye.
The actual "mystery" of the previous two films were a bit far fetched but the mystery in this movie really hurts the film because it's so damn obvious Vincent is the killer that it gets quite boring watching the detectives try and figure out the mystery. There are so many clues given to the police that I had to keep shaking my head wondering how long it was going to take them to figure it out. Cameron Mitchell, God bless his poor soul, is quite good here in his usual over the top way and keeps the film interesting throughout. If you haven't seen Mystery or House then check those out before viewing this one.