The Waxwork story
Reporter Raymond Houston stays overnight in a wax museum in order to write an important article. Raymond, who is claustrophobic, hallucinates that one of the wax figures is alive, and is found dead the next morning. Directed by: Robert Stevens. Story by: A. M. Burrage, Casey Robinson.
15 total · 7 major · 8 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| anthropomorphic object come to life | major | The waxwork figure of the serial killing barber Bourdette came to life and slit Raymond's throat with a razor, or so it appeared. |
| coping with being in debt | major | Raymond resolved to write a sensational news article and use the money to pay off a gambling debt. |
| fear | major | Raymond became increasingly afraid as he spent the night in a creepy wax museum. |
| hallucination of a non-existing person | major | It was revealed in the end that Raymond had hallucinated that the wax figure of a notorious murderer was alive. Raymond presumably died from fear as a result of the experience. |
| journalism | major | Raymond stayed overnight in a wax museum in order to write a news article about the experience. |
| murder | major | The viewer was shown a number of fictional notorious murderers immortalized in wax, and heard something of their deeds. The story culminated with Raymond hallucinating that the wax figure of the notorious murderer Bourdette had come to life and was about to slit his throat with a razor. |
| wax sculpture | major | Raymond stayed over night in a museum filled with wax dolls of notorious murderers. |
| capital punishment | minor | Mr. Marriner expected that the parliament would soon pass a law banning capital punishment. |
| claustrophobia | minor | Raymond was reluctant to be locked in the wax museum dungeon overnight on account that he had a "kind of funny feeling about being closed in". |
| desperation | minor | Raymond explained that he needed the story very badly in order to pay off his (gambling?) debt. |