Back to trending
Mystery of the Wax Museum

Mystery of the Wax Museum

Horror · Mystery · 1933

A wax sculptor opens a new museum years after he is severely injured during a fire that destroyed his original collection. The disappearance of both people and corpses coincides with this grand reopening and leads a reporter to start investigating.

Movie details

Mystery of the Wax Museum

“The supreme thriller!”

1933 Horror · Mystery 1h 18m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.5 / 10

Community rating

A wax sculptor opens a new museum years after he is severely injured during a fire that destroyed his original collection. The disappearance of both people and corpses coincides with this grand reopening and leads a reporter to start investigating.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Mystery of the Wax Museum?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

The City of the Dead

The City of the Dead

Mystery · 1960

In Whitewood, Massachusetts, a presumed witch places a curse on the town before she is burned at the stake. 300 years later, a college student arrives and checks into the mysterious Raven's Inn to research the town's history with witchcraft.

X: The Unknown

X: The Unknown

Horror · 1956

Army radiation experiments awaken a subterranean monster from a fissure that feeds on energy and proceeds to terrorise a remote Scottish village. An American research scientist at a nearby nuclear plant joins with a British investigator to discover why the victims were radioactively burned and why, shortly thereafter, a series of radiation-related incidents are occurring in an ever-growing straight line away from the fissure.

The Return of Doctor X

The Return of Doctor X

Sci-fi · 1939

When news reporter Walter Garrett arrives at the hotel room of bombshell actress Angela Merrova to conduct an interview, he finds her dead from multiple stab wounds. He returns with the police to find the hotel empty and the body vanished. Garrett writes about the incident but is fired when Merrova, alive and well, goes to the paper to complain. Now his only chance to get his job back is to find the truth, which involves the grisly scheme of a madman.

The Hound of the Baskervilles

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Horror · 1983

When a nobleman is threatened by a family curse on his newly inherited estate, detective Sherlock Holmes is hired to investigate.

Cosmos

Cosmos

Sci-fi · 2019

Three astronomers accidentally intercept what they believe to be a signal from a distant alien civilization, but the truth is even more incredible than any of them could have imagined.

Night Watch

Night Watch

Mystery · 1973

A woman recovering from a nervous breakdown tries to convince her husband and and the local London police that she has witnessed a murder in the abandoned house next door.

Escape Room

Escape Room

Horror · 2019

Six strangers find themselves in circumstances beyond their control, and must use their wits to survive.

Thirteen at Dinner

Thirteen at Dinner

Crime · 1985

Actress Jane Wilkinson wants a divorce, but her husband, Lord Edgware, refuses. She convinces Hercule Poirot to use his famed tact and logic to make her case. Lord Edgware turns up murdered, a well-placed knife wound at the base of his neck. It will take the precise Poirot to sort out the lies from the alibis - and find the criminal before another victim dies.

Eradication

Eradication

Horror · 2022

When an unknown disease wipes out most of the world’s population, a man with unique blood is isolated for study. Fearing for his wife’s safety, he breaks his quarantine – into a world overrun by monstrous Infected and a shadowy agency hunting them down.

The Mean Season

The Mean Season

Mystery · 1985

A routine investigation of a shocking murder takes a bizarre twist when the killer contacts the reporter and appoints him his personal spokesman. As the killer's calls and clues increase, the reporter is lured into a deadly trap.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

Cinema release signals and current streaming, rental, and purchase options for your region.

Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Michael Curtiz

Written by

Don Mullaly · Carl Erickson · Charles S. Belden

Lionel Atwill

Lionel Atwill

Ivan Igor

Glenda Farrell

Glenda Farrell

Florence Dempsey

Allen Vincent

Allen Vincent

Ralph Burton

Fay Wray

Fay Wray

Charlotte Duncan

Frank McHugh

Frank McHugh

Jim

Edwin Maxwell

Edwin Maxwell

Worth

Arthur Edmund Carewe

Arthur Edmund Carewe

Professor Darcy

Court is in session

Put Mystery of the Wax Museum on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Arthouse Gremlin

“Its refusal to behave is the point.”

The strange choices create the kind of friction that follows you out of the theatre and into the argument.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Oddness is not depth.”

A film can break every rule and still leave nothing behind but the memory of how hard it tried to be singular.