I have a serious question. Is Vincent Price handsome? His voice is fantastic, I don’t think that is up for debate, but I really can’t tell if his looks would make the ladies of his time swoon.

I guess that’s not the point of this film because his character is only in love with his “creations.” I don’t pretend to understand the mind of mercury-addled artists, so if you have to make a life-like Marie Antoinette for a companion, I’m not gonna kink-shame you.

Of course, if he was an innocent man just making wax figurines this movie wouldn’t have been made. Or maybe it would have, but shown in a VERY different movie theater in Times Square.

The film begins with an artist (Price) arguing with his financier about his museum. Apparently the popularity of his wax figures isn’t quite what the investor was hoping, and begs Price to make more gory scenes. Because apparently the draw of realistic figures wasn’t enough for New Yorkers in the early 1900s. They needed them to look like they were murdering each other. Hey, who are we to judge? Have you seen our top ten podcasts in this country? Fuck ton of true crime. We are all side show attendees, don’t front.

Anyways the investor decides to take matters in his own hands and light the museum on fire, with Vincent Price in it. Everyone assumes Vincent Price was killed but no one ever finds his body. A few months later, the investor collects on the insurance money and is found hanging in the elevator shaft. So obviously Price is not dead.

But he doesn’t stop there, he goes after the investor’s girlfriend next. Unfortunately, his aftermath of the murder is interrupted by the girl’s roommate Sue. Sue is now being stalked by Price who is currently rocking a “Elephant Man level disfigurement.”

Sue keeps trying to tell the police that Price (whose character is named Jarrod) is using REAL bodies in the new museum he is opening in her neighborhood. Of course the police don’t believe a “skirt” or “dame” or “legs” or whatever they called women back then. Definitely not “concerned citizen we should listen to.”

To fuck with Sue even more, Jarrod hires her boyfriend to do work for him. The museum opens to a rousing success because he finally took his investor’s advice and made it uber-macabre. Jarrod isn’t satisfied with using cadavers as his models. He now wants living ones. And Sue is his first experiment.

The police finally believe Sue, but only because the drunk assistant of Jarrod finally confesses everything after they withhold a bottle of whiskey from him. So if you’re keeping score, the police DON’T believe a woman who has been bringing them evidence for months but they will believe a drunk suffering from the DTs.

Jarrod finally gets a taste of his own medicine and falls into a vat of wax which I assume kills him. I don’t know. We use hot wax for spa treatments now. He could just come out with even smoother skin. The cops are assholes to Sue still, and treat her like a joke even after the traumatic events she goes through before she is rescued. They even joke about finding her naked and strapped to the table. The real horrible people are the cops. Wax the police!