Plot
Anthony Draco (Danova) and Harold Blount (Hyde-White) are proprietors of a wax museum in Baltimore who are also amateur sleuths. They are drawn into the investigation of Jason Cravette (O'Neal), an insane murderer who kills a woman and then "marries" her. They help the police capture him, and he is convicted of murder and sentenced to hang. He escapes while being transported by chopping off his own hand. Presumed dead by the police, Cravette flees to New Orleans. With a hook in place of his severed hand, and under an assumed name, he plots vengeance on all who "betrayed" him.
As part of his plan, he takes the prostitute Marie Champlain in his charge, turning her into a "lady" and returning with her to Baltimore. There he sets Marie on a mission to seduce the judge who condemned him in order to trap and murder him. After killing the judge, he chops off the judge's arms and head, obscuring his identity.
Draco and Blount discover the crime scene and realize the judge has been murdered, and that the murderer toasted the crime with champagne after butchering him. With only the report of a mysterious blonde as a clue, Draco and Blount seek out one of the judge's friends who reveals the judge's sordid fondness for women, as well as the name "Marie" of his latest dalliance.
After tracking Marie to her home address, Draco calls on her. Using the missing judge as a reference, Draco asks Marie to pose for him in order to make a wax model of her. Overhearing Draco's offer, Cravette encourages Marie to accept the offer, as well as Draco's subsequent proposal for an evening on the town.
While Draco is distracted with Marie, Cravette kidnaps Dr. Cobb, who had testified at Cravette's trial, murdering him and also severing his hands, which he sends to the police with a cryptic note.
Draco and Blount conclude that the mysterious murderer is delivering a corpse of a man to the police piece-by-piece, with the arms and head still missing. When Draco accidentally surprises Marie with a wax dummy of the dead judge, she realizes her role in the murders and tells them the story of the man with the severed hand she met in New Orleans. Confronted with a wax dummy of Cravette, Marie tells them that he is the man she met in New Orleans.
Now realizing that they are up against a man they thought dead, and that he is no doubt seeking to kill the rest of his enemies as a way of finishing the "body", Draco, Blount, and the police set up a dragnet for the escaped murderer.
Cravette is apparently apprehended by one of the patrolmen (Rogers) who originally arrested him. But Cravette kills him with a pistol concealed in a mock hand over his severed hook, sending his arms to the police.
Draco, knowing that he is intended to be the "head" of Cravette's assembled revenge corpse, concludes that Cravette will come for him in his wax museum. Remaining inside his museum all night with Marie and Blount, and with the police protecting the building, Draco awaits the arrival of his deadly nemesis.
Cravette evades the police stakeout by sneaking into the building through the roof. After distracting and knocking out Draco's companions one by one, Cravette confronts Draco, telling him he wants his head. After a struggle using antique weapons, Cravette is impaled in ghastly fashion on his own wax image.
In the concluding scene, it is revealed that Marie was given a light sentence of two years. Draco and Blount then notice that the female wax dummy in their exhibit of an iron maiden is "too real." Realizing that she is an actual murder victim, they call for the police.
Draco Lucius Malfoy is a fictional character and a major antagonist in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. He is a student in Harry Potter's year belonging in the Slytherin house. He is frequently accompanied by his two cronies, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, who act as henchmen. Draco is characterised as a cowardly bully who tricks and hurts people to get what he wants; he is also a cunning user of magic. He was played by Tom Felton in the Harry Potter film series.
House of Wax is a 1953 American mystery-horror film directed by Andre de Toth and released by Warner Bros. A remake of the studio's own 1933 film, Mystery of the Wax Museum, it stars Vincent Price as a disfigured sculptor who repopulates his destroyed wax museum by murdering people and using their wax-coated corpses as displays. The film premiered in New York on April 10, 1953 and had a general release on April 25, making it the first 3D film with stereophonic sound to be presented in a regular theater and the first color 3D feature film from a major American studio. Man in the Dark, released by Columbia Pictures, was the first major-studio black-and-white 3D feature and premiered two days before House of Wax.
Antoinette Renee Frank is a former officer of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) who, on March 4, 1995, committed a violent armed robbery at a restaurant which resulted in the killing of two members of the Vietnamese-American family who ran the establishment, and fellow NOPD officer Ronald A. Williams II. She was aided by her probable lover, drug dealer Rogers Lacaze. Frank has been incarcerated since 1995 at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, the only woman on the state's death row.
Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English actor. Described by Philip French as a "classic British film archetype", Hyde-White often portrayed droll and urbane upper-class characters. He had an extensive stage and screen career in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and portrayed over 160 film and television roles between 1935 and 1987. He was twice nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, in 1957 for The Reluctant Debutante and in 1973 for The Jockey Club Stakes.
Dr Terror's House of Horrors is a 1965 British anthology horror film from Amicus Productions, directed by veteran horror director Freddie Francis, written by Milton Subotsky, and starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
Mystery of the Wax Museum is a 1933 American pre-Code mystery-horror film directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, and Frank McHugh. It was produced and released by Warner Bros. and filmed in two-color Technicolor; Doctor X and Mystery of the Wax Museum were the last two dramatic fiction films made using this process.
Jack the Ripper, an unidentified serial killer active in and around Whitechapel in 1888, has been featured in works of fiction ranging from gothic novels published at the time of the murders to modern motion pictures, televised dramas and video games.
The Mad Ghoul is a 1943 American horror film directed by James Hogan and starring Turhan Bey, Evelyn Ankers, and David Bruce, and featuring George Zucco, Robert Armstrong, and Milburn Stone. The film is about the scientist Dr. Alfred Morris and his assistant Ted Allison. Morris, who is obsessed with an ancient Mayan life-preserving process to the point of madness, has fallen in love with Allison's girlfriend, the concert singer Isabel Lewis. Morris decides to use Allison for his eternal-life experiments, transforming him into a zombie who slowly recalls his past life, but is unaware of his undead status.
The House That Dripped Blood is a 1971 British anthology horror film directed by Peter Duffell and made by Amicus Productions. It stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Nyree Dawn Porter, Denholm Elliott, and Jon Pertwee. The film is a collection of four short stories concerning a series of inhabitants of the eponymous building. All of the stories were originally written, and subsequently scripted, by Robert Bloch.
Horrors of the Black Museum is a 1959 British horror film directed by Arthur Crabtree and starring Michael Gough, June Cunningham, Graham Curnow and Shirley Anne Field.
Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1953 American horror comedy film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, co-starring Boris Karloff, and directed by Charles Lamont.
Corridors of Blood is a 1958 British-American period drama film directed by Robert Day and starring Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee. It was written by Jean Scott Rogers. The original music score was composed by Buxton Orr.
Cesare Danova was an Italian television and screen actor. He was best known for his roles in The Captain's Daughter (1947), Viva Las Vegas (1964), Chamber of Horrors (1966), Mean Streets (1973), National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and various roles in The Rifleman (1958-1963).
The Mad Magician is a 1954 American horror film in 3D, directed by John Brahm starring Vincent Price, Mary Murphy and Eva Gabor. It was produced and distributed by Columbia Pictures, with a release in 3-D to build on the craze started by films such as House of Wax (1953), which also starred Price. In the film, a master illusionist murders his employer after learning he tricked him into signing away ownership of every trick he invents, and finds that to avoid being caught for the murder he must kill again and again.
The Brute Man is a 1946 American horror thriller film starring Rondo Hatton as the Creeper, a murderer seeking revenge against the people he holds responsible for the disfigurement of his face. Directed by Jean Yarbrough, the film features Tom Neal and Jan Wiley as a married pair of friends the Creeper blames for his deformities. Jane Adams also stars as a blind pianist for whom the Creeper tries to raise money for an operation to restore her vision. The film is a prequel to House of Horrors (1946).
Macabre is a 1980 Italian horror film directed by Lamberto Bava.
Miss Nobody is a 2010 American black comedy film directed by Tim Cox and written by Douglas Steinberg. The film stars Leslie Bibb as a mild-mannered secretary who murders her way up the corporate ladder. It also stars Adam Goldberg, Kathy Baker, Brandon Routh, Vivica A. Fox, and Missi Pyle.
The Chamber of Horrors is an exhibition at Madame Tussauds in London, being an exhibition of waxworks of notorious murderers and other infamous historical figures. The gallery first opened as a "Separate Room" in Marie Tussaud's 1802 exhibition in London and quickly became a success as it showed historical personalities and artefacts rather than the freaks of nature popular in other waxworks of the day. It closed in April 2016 but reopened 6 years later in October 2022.
"Magical Thinking" is the eleventh episode of the fourth season of the anthology television series American Horror Story, which premiered on January 7, 2015, on the cable network FX. It was written by Jennifer Salt and directed by Michael Goi.
Murder Between Friends is an American murder mystery television film of 1994, directed by Waris Hussein.
