The story takes place in Rome in 1912, twelwe years after a young girl has witnessed the brutal slaying of her parents in Paris. The girl, now a grown up woman (Romina Mondello), now works as a dressmaker at the museum when two new murders takes place. A young journalist in funny haircut (Serventi) arrives at the scene just in time to notice that there's suspiciously many life-like wax dolls at the museum.

The premise is a re-working of the classic Mystery of the Wax Museum (you know, the one they later remade with Vincent Price) but there's a little Phantom of the Opera (you know, the one Argento has recently remade himself) as well. And it has all the ingredients we've learned to expect and appreciate from Argento and others like him. That means a dark, attractive female lead in Romina Mondello (from Claudio Fragazzo's Daring Young and some episodes of the La Piovra VII TV- series), who makes a nice substitute for the usual Asia Argento. There's also a ship full of juicy special effects and a razor sharp set design with colorful photography. Those are the good parts. Now, let's see if we can straighten things up. Firstly, if there is any justice this side of the millenium cinematographer Sergio Salvati (reunited here with his assistant Franco Bruni who worked with him so successfully on The Beyond etc) should be given a lot more credit than he have had in the past. He is certainly almost too good for this kind of lowbudget nonsense and the only reason Wax Mask if nothing else looks like a good horror film. Because the content is mainly nonsense, albeit nonsense dressed up in nice contemporary costumes. Stivaletti has never directed a film before. He's a special effects-guy for Christ sake! That's the golden rule of horrordom; don't let the special effects-guy direct. Too much in love with his puppets. Puppets are not humans. Some sources suggests that we should treat the film as a Dario Argento film, but whether that's an excuse I don't know. It probably isn't. Neither Argento's own offerings of the '90s has been particularly inspired and Wax Mask is indictable monotonic and superficial. I can buy bad dubbing and I can buy fuzzy logic and I don't ask questions when I see Italian horror. Repeated viewings of Inferno or The Beyond tend to cure that. But Stivaletti isn't Argento by a long shot. He can't keep a film alive with just creativity and inspiration. He shows no sense for space, the film consists of little more than characters walking on a soundstage and around fake buildings and it feels like it. Neither does he have any sense for the beauty some parts of the script requires. It's all heavy-handed, as if directed by a butcher. And, most of all, he doesn't infuse any dramatic tension in the murder scenes whatsoever. In short, he just wastes 90 minutes of celluloid. However, there is no hold back on the bloody effects and there's plenty of gratuitous nudity as well. That's nice enough. But it won't fool anyone for long. The lasting impression is still that of disappointment. We can only imagine about how the film had been if Lucio Fulci had directed it as planned. Probably it would have been a little better, although not much considering Fulci's bleak and tired final efforts (Voices From Beyond etc). As helmed by Stivaletti only the beautiful cinematography and some of the lead performances carries Wax Mask through. To make a long story short: looks damn good, smells funny.