"Compared to other horror movies of the same vintage, the thing one primarily notices about Mystery of the Wax Museum is that it doesn't spare anything: right from the images of wax models melting in a grotesque parody of human decay and rotten, near the very start of the film, the filmmakers pile on images that are more concerned with scoring fast knockouts than sidling around behind us to be creepy and subdued. Mystery of the Wax Museum has many wonderful characteristics, but not subtlety. The camerawork is often heavily artificial and exaggerated, a clear and rather exciting attempt to bring the discordant angles and geometry of Germany Expressionism into the by-necessity well-lit interiors and florid colors of red-green Technicolor. Farrell's performance, which I find absolutely captivating, has all the grace and insinuation of a machine gun nest." - Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy