History Main / WaxMuseumMorgue

* In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' The Penguin has this in his museum. He has a member of the League of Assassins, Mr. Freeze and Scarface on display, bodies of cops and members of Joker's and Two Face's gangs, and exhibits ready for Bruce Wayne and Batman. Some of them, such as police fed to sharks and Harley's hyenas killed and stuffed, show how utterly sadistic he is.

* Rugal Bernstein of ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'' dipped his opponents in metal after beating them and kept them as statues.

* A nonlethal variant occurs in ''Manga/PhantomThiefJeanne''. [[spoiler:Chiaki's father]], under [[DemonicPossession a demon's influence]], abducted several women, drugged them into a state of suspended animation, and posed them identically to the models in a real wax museum one floor above them. He intended to "complete" his collection with [[spoiler:Chiaki]] and Jeanne, but the ensuing battle triggered a shock wave big enough to jolt the victims back to consciousness.

* In ''All-Star Comics'' #38 an insane Wax Museum Guard who had earlier killed the ComicBook/{{Justice Society|OfAmerica}} captures them and tries to turn them into wax figures. However, the ComicBook/BlackCanary impersonates Lucrezia Borgia so the guard gets them out. He then falls into his own wax vat.

* ''Film/HouseOfWax2005'' (2005) bears little resemblance to [[Film/HouseOfWax1953 the 1953 film]]. Instead, it's a partial remake of a relatively obscure Creator/ChuckConnors horror called ''Film/TouristTrap'' (1978), even duplicating that film's main plot twist.

* A nonlethal variant occurrs in ''Manga/PhantomThiefJeanne''. [[spoiler:Chiaki's father]], under [[DemonicPossession a demon's influence]], abducted several women, drugged them into a state of suspended animation, and posed them identically to the models in a real wax museum one floor above them. He intended to "complete" his collection with [[spoiler:Chiaki]] and Jeanne, but the ensuing battle triggered a shock wave big enough to jolt the victims back to consciousness.

* In ''Manga/TheKurosagiCorpseDeliveryService'', one job has the group travel to China to investigate a company that produces artistic mannequin displays made from human remains. They end up learning that the company is being run by the descendants of those working in Unit 731 and that the process to make the art displays involves kidnapping unsuspecting tourists out of dressing rooms, draining their blood, and flushing out their intestines. ''While the person is still awake.''

* The ''[[Anime/CuteyHoney New Cutey Honey]]'' {{OVA}}s had our heroine face the Jewel Princess, a PsychoLesbian who turned the young women who caught her fancy into crystal statues to decorate her lair.
-->'''Jewel Princess''': I will give you the gift of ''eternal'' beauty.

* A nonlethal variant occurred in ''Manga/PhantomThiefJeanne''. [[spoiler: Chiaki's father]], under [[DemonicPossession a demon's influence]], abducted several women, drugged them into a state of suspended animation, and posed them identically to the models in a real wax museum one floor above them. He intended to "complete" his collection with [[spoiler:Chiaki]] and Jeanne, but the ensuing battle triggered a shock wave big enough to jolt the victims back to consciousness.

* Kise Eiji from ''Manga/{{Psyren}}'' used his [[PsychicPowers powers]] to create statues by merging people with cement or similar. From the looks on their faces, it was extremely painful.

* German thriller ''Film/{{Anatomy}}'' has a very disturbing version of this. Ever seen the "Bodies" exhibition? [[spoiler:Now imagine it with 1: the skins on, and the persons recognizable. 2: They were your friends. 3: They were still damn alive when the preparation process started. 4: you're next.]]
* The movie ''Film/{{Bloodlust}}'' featured [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame a villain who liked to hunt humans as prey]] and who had his crack staff of henchmen preserve the bodies for display in an underground gallery. One of the hunter's henchmen winds up falling into a vat of chemicals and dying, but the hunter himself avoids that fate -- he gets to be impaled, [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic Christlike]], in one of his gallery display niches.
* Several film versions of the Bluebeard legend show the room in which the preserved bodies of the titular character's wives are kept. For instance and in a modern twist, in the 1971 version starring Creator/RichardBurton, the unfortunate beauties are [[BodyInABreadbox stashed in a large walk-in freezer]].
* The Creator/RogerCorman film ''Film/ABucketOfBlood'' is about a down-on-his-luck artist who accidentally kills a cat, then preserves it and displays it as an original sculpture. Fame, fortune, and depravity soon follow.

* The temple where the snake-headed, snake-bodied Medusa lived in ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|1981}}'' contained the statues of unfortunate heroes who were petrified by her glance. (This kind of petrification was ''not'' reversible.)

* In the movie ''Film/HerculesUnchained'', the titular character finds himself under the spell of the Evil Queen Omphale, who keeps a staff of Egyptian priests on hand to preserve the bodies of her killed and discarded lovers. True to form, the evil Queen commits suicide at the end by tossing herself into the priests' vat of preserving chemicals.
* ''Film/{{House of Wax|2005}}'' (2005) bears little resemblance to the 1953 film. Instead, it's a partial remake of a relatively obscure Creator/ChuckConnors horror called ''Film/TouristTrap'' (1978), even duplicating that film's main plot twist.

* The MadeForTVMovie ''Film/KISSMeetsThePhantomOfThePark'' featured a version of this plot with mind-controlled teens disguised as animatronic robots.

* ''Film/MysteryOfTheWaxMuseum'' (1933), ''Film/{{House Of Wax|1953}}'' (1953, starring Creator/VincentPrice), and ''Terror in the Wax Museum'' (1973) are probably the definitive movie examples of this trope.
* In the ''Franchise/StarWars'' movies, Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite and [[http://williambeem.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Han-Solo-in-Carbonite.jpg put on display in Jabba's palace]]. This is a downplayed example since Han is the only "exhibit," and Jabba doesn't try to pass his exhibit off as anything other than a petrified human. It's not so much a depraved art exhibit as it is a display of victory and power, akin to the White Witch's courtyard full of petrified enemies in ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe''.
* In the 1988 film ''Film/{{Waxwork}}'' a wax museum in a small town is supposedly opening soon and invites some teens to a private showing, seeing numerous displays about various historical figures such as {{Dracula}}, Franchise/ThePhantomOfTheOpera, a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf]] and the Marquis de Sade. It turns out the owner is a practitioner of the dark arts and each display is actually a pocket dimension with actual artifacts from the actual historical monsters. Whenever someone steps into the display, they are pulled into the world of the monster and killed. When all the displays have a sacrifice in them, the monsters will come back to life and go back out into the world.

* Similar to the Narnia example, Freya from ''Film/TheHuntsmanWintersWar'' traps her enemies in ice and has their frozen bodies posed in the royal gallery. Luckily it's only a case of HarmlessFreezing, so they revive after her defeat.

* ''Series/GetSmart''

* ''Webcomic/LastRes0rt'' has Geisha -- who wound up a contestant on the show for ''thirty-nine'' counts of murder. To be more precise, he's classed as an assassin-grade Gorgon and was caught with thirty-nine 'statues' of people he had kidnapped, tortured, and then murdered by turning them into stone. And those counts of murder only apply to the ones that could be people - the actual toll is likely far higher, considering that he only got caught because he stopped using 'untouchables'.

[[folder:Western Animation ]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBeatles'' visit a wax museum to see the wax statues of themselves (episode "Misery"). On the way, they come across a statue of Count Dracula, who suddenly comes to life. During the episode, John and Paul replace the wax statues of themselves at the Beatles exhibit ''with'' themselves as a young lady and an elderly lady happen by:

* In ''Franchise/TheChroniclesOfRiddick: WesternAnimation/DarkFury'', the antagonist wants to add Riddick to her collection of frozen criminals.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|1987}}'': one episode has a collector and wax museum owner who's a mix of MadArtist, CollectorOfTheStrange, StalkerWithoutACrush, and LoonyFan (of the Turtles) capturing them and April. The Turtles are frozen still with a gas and put on display while the villain prepares to dip April in wax and intends to do the same to the heroes. Irma arrives just in time to unfreeze them and they save the day, battling an army of robots that the villain used as skeletons for his wax figures.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Vincent}}'': Vincent Malloy has one of these in his fantasies; he even imagines adding ''his own aunt'' to the collection. It is of course part of the {{homage}} to Creator/VincentPrice, who starred in 1953's ''House of Wax'' and narrates the short.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': In "[[Recap/ArrowS2E3BrokenDolls Broken Dolls]]", serial killer The Dollmaker appropriately has this as his [=MO=], killing women with the delicate complexion he prefers by pouring a polymer down their throats with a tube so they drown. He abducts Quentin Lance (the cop trying to catch him) and his daughter Laurel, intending to subject her to the process in front of her father, but Oliver saves her with a well-placed arrow.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': The episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E20Elegy Elegy]]" involves three astronauts landing on an asteroid where the inhabitants appear to be frozen in scenes of idyllic [[TheFifties 1950s]] life. Of course, the immortal robotic caretaker informs them that the asteroid is really an exclusive cemetery where the rich can eternally partake in their favourite activity after death. And by the way, what would they most like to be doing right now?

* ''Series/{{Yeralash}}'', of all series, has a PlayedForLaughs and ([[UncertainDoom hopefully]]) non-lethal example in in the episode centered around the game of “freeze”, where everyone who hears that word has to stay still. One boy exploits it to cause trouble for fun. Meanwhile, a girl from the same school is told to find a bugler statue to display in the hall, but then realizes that a combination of the troublemaking boy, a bugle, the word “freeze” and a whole lot of white paint is quicker and cheaper...

* The ''Next Issue Project'' story on ''Captain Kidd, Adventurer'' is a WholePlotReference to ''Literature/TheMostDangerousGame'' with an even more macabre twist. AcePilot Kidd responds to a DistressCall on a mysterious uncharted island to discover that it's the lair of a Col. Killbuck, who has been luring adventurers to his island for years, killing them in rigged duels, and stuffing their bodies to display in his private museum . Kidd is impressed at the likeness of what he assumes are wax replicas before Killbuck explains.

* The ''Next Issue Project'' story on ''Captain Kidd, Adventurer'' is a WholePlotReference to Literature/TheMostDangerousGame with an even more macabre twist. AcePilot Kidd responds to a DistressCall on a mysterious uncharted island to discover that it's the lair of a Col. Killbuck, who has been luring adventurers to his island for years, killing them in rigged duels, and stuffing their bodies to display in his private museum . Kidd is impressed at the likeness of what he assumes are wax replicas before Killbuck explains.

* ''Series/GetSmart''. The episode "The Wax Max" has KAOS agents concealing the bodies of people they kill by coating them in wax and leaving them to suffocate while everyone who sees the bodies think that they're just dummies modeling the clothing sold at the fashion show they're using as a cover.

* One ''Series/GetSmart'' episode has KAOS agents concealing the bodies of people they kill by coating them in wax and leaving them to suffocate while everyone who sees the bodies think that they're just dummies modeling the clothing sold at the fashion show they're using as a cover.

* Book 34 of the ''Literature/{{Shivers}}'' series by M.D. Spenser, ''Weirdo Waldo's Wax Museum'', features this trope played straight. However, beyond the stereotypical wax displays usually used, the museum in question has multiple displays that demonstrate the history of man's cruelty, including racial and religious persecution, wars, slavery, genocides, and the Holocaust. The families invited to the museum each represent a different stereotype: rich, poor, jock, nerd, religious, and redneck. Their host has done this to demonstrate their unwillingness to cooperate and constant bickering and judgement of one another.

** Subverted in a ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}} adventure involving a creepy wax museum. The characters are at first lead to believe the proprietor may be murdering people. Turns out he's a wax golem replacing the people of the city with living wax duplicates, but he actually needs to keep the originals alive, and has to spend some time and effort keeping the catatonic victims from dying of thirst or hunger.

* One of the ''Literature/NewSeriesAdventures'' novels, ''The Stone Rose'', features this. Okay, Rose is turned into stone but the principle's the same with the freaky sculptor. Also used in its normal form in the original-series story "Spearhead from Space" and in the ''Agent Provocateur'' comic book, but with sand statues.

* One ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode had a killer stuffing the head of a woman and hanging it on the wall. [[ItMakesSenseInContext He thought she was an alien space lizard disguised as a human]], though.

** In the special "[[Recap/DoctorWho20thASTheFiveDoctors The Five Doctors]]", any Time Lord who claims Rassilon's prize of true immortality [[spoiler: is turned into a still aware but immobile decoration on Rassilon's tomb]].

** A similar example occurs in the Eleventh Doctor episode "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E11TheCrimsonHorror The Crimson Horror]]" where a model town is filled with preserved bodies, kept in stasis for what the Big Bad of the Week believes is the coming apocalypse. The Doctor must rescue his companion Clara who has been subjected to the process [[spoiler:but thankfully she gets better]].
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E11DarkWater Dark Water]]", Twelve and Clara visit a mausoleum in which skeletons [[spoiler:that are actually Missy's Cybermen]] sit displayed in tanks of clear fluid.

* One ''Series/GetSmart'' episode had KAOS agents concealing the bodies of people they killed by coating them in wax and leaving them to suffocate while everyone who saw the bodies thought they were just dummies modeling the clothing sold at the fashion show they were using as a cover.
* ''Series/RizzoliAndIsles'' found a body inside a statue that was accidentally broken. The killer had posed it to mimic an existing work of art and coated it with plaster.

* ''Series/WonderWoman'': The episode 'The Fine Art of Crime' has a curious variation on the theme. Wonder Woman discovers that mannequins in a waxwork show are actually humans frozen in suspended animation. But rather than victims they are the villains' henchmen whom he is using to infiltrate and rob museums. Wonder Woman herself joins their number as a living statue, accepting she has been outsmarted and surrendering into becoming the bad guys' prize exhibit put on display to an appreciative public. The character of Henry Roberts is the progenitor of the Dollmaker character in the DC universe.

* "The Abominable History of the Man With the Copper Fingers", by Creator/DorothyLSayers, has sleuth Literature/LordPeterWimsey uncovering the truth about a jealous sculptor's surprisingly lifelike statue of his mistress (hint: electroplating is involved).
* An evil master vampire in Creator/ChristopherMoore's ''Literature/BloodsuckingFiends'' is also electroplated into a copper statue. [[spoiler: He survives and eventually gets out.]]

* One of the ''Series/DoctorWho'' novels, ''The Stone Rose'', features this. Okay, Rose is turned into stone but the principle's the same with the freaky sculptor. Also used in its normal form in the original-series story "Spearhead from Space" and in the ''Agent Provocateur'' comic book, but with sand statues.

* In Creator/IainBanks' ''Literature/{{Excession}}'', the Culture has many members who place themselves in storage using long-term suspended animation suits which are very thin and transparent. The long-term storage ship ''Sleeper Service'' uses the bodies to create dioramas of various famous wars and other events. Subverted in that the suspendees are volunteers, alive, and routinely returned to their lives upon completion of their requested term of suspension.

* Creator/RoaldDahl's short story "The Landlady" (from ''Series/TalesOfTheUnexpected'') in which a businessman arrives at a creepy hotel.
* Robert W. Chambers' short story "The Mask", from ''Literature/TheKingInYellow'', in which an artist created a liquid that turned anything stuck into it into stone. He killed a lot of flowers and bugs. Then his wife fell in. This petrification was also reversible, but by the time anyone found out, the artist had shot himself.

* ''Literature/TheCampHalfBloodSeries'':
** Medusa's shop of "garden statues" in ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians''.
** The SequelSeries ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' has King Midas's house, which is filled with golden statues. Take a wild guess of how they were made.

* In Creator/JohnChristopher's ''Literature/TheTripods'' series, the narrator Will is taken by his alien master to a museum that displays outstanding specimens of humanity. There he is sickened to see the corpse of his friend Eloise, preserved in a glass case. When Will last saw her, Eloise had been voted queen of the tournament and thus won the right to serve the Tripods. She went happily.

* ''Anime/LupinIIIPartII'' has "[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E59 Madame Prefers Them Hand-Dipped]]", which revolves around the mysterious Madame X, who wishes to capture the Lupin gang, turn them into wax figures, and add them to her collection of encased celebrity corpses.

* A non-villainous example in the ''Emerald'' arc of ''Manga/PokemonAdventures''. After [[spoiler:the five Dex Holders from the ''[=FireRed/LeafGreen=]'' arc are TakenForGranite]], their petrified bodies are taken by allies to the museum-ish area of the Battle Tower, put on display as to ensure they will be in place [[spoiler:to be unpetrified by Jirachi's wishes]].

* ''Film/MysteryOfTheWaxMuseum'' (1933), ''Film/{{House Of Wax|1953}}'' (1953, starring Creator/VincentPrice) and ''Terror in the Wax Museum'' (1973) are probably the definitive movie examples of this trope.
* In the ''Franchise/StarWars'' movies, Han Solo gets frozen in carbonite and [[http://williambeem.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Han-Solo-in-Carbonite.jpg put on display in Jabba's palace]]. This is a downplayed example, since Han is the only "exhibit," and Jabba doesn't try to pass his exhibit off as anything other than a petrified human. It's not so much a depraved art exhibit as it is a display of victory and power, akin to the White Witch's courtyard full of petrified enemies in ''Literature/TheLionTheWitchAndTheWardrobe''.

* In ''Literature/{{Coraline}}'', the retired actresses who live downstairs have their dogs preserved after they die, dressing their remains in angel costumes and displaying them in the parlor. At one point, we see one of the ladies sewing the costume for a dog which is ''still alive'', but has become old and sickly. Unusually for this trope, though, they're harmless, nice people, who just have an odd way of grieving.

** The SequelSeries ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' has King Midas's house, which is filled with golden statues. Take a wild guess how they were made.
* Book 34 of the ''Literature/{{Shivers}}'' series by M.D. Spenser, ''Weirdo Waldo's Wax Museum'', features this trope played straight. However, beyond the stereotypical wax displays usually used, the museum in question has multiple displays that demonstrate the history of man's cruelty, including racial and religious persecution, wars, slavery, genocides, and the Holocaust. The families invited to the museum each represent a different stereotype: rich, poor, jock, nerd, religious, and redneck. Their host has done this to demonstrate their unwillingness to co-operate and constant bickering and judgement of one another.

** Another episode (appropriately titled ''Wax Magic'') had a variant: a wax modeller killed the woman he was obsessed with, and uses a cursed object (a handkerchief belonging to the original Madame Tussaud) to gradually bring a wax model of the woman to life, with the original's personality included.

** One adventure module (available on the Wizards site) has an encounter where a prison guard of BedlamHouse has been reduced to near-death and partially baked into a gargoyle statue. A player with more GenreSavvy-ness than [[FailedASpotCheck ranks in Spot]] will notice the "statue's" moving eyes, assume that it is an actual gargoyle and swiftly kill an innocent.
** A truly bizarre take on this is Mhasha Zakk the Dustman taxidermist mentioned ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' Splat book ''In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil''. While she acts like a sweet old woman and is clearly not a killer, she ''loves'' her work so much that occasionally ''asks'' a customer for his or her corpse after his death. [[NightmareFuelStationAttendant And she is deadly serious about it.]] What makes this especially creepy is the fact that at least three customers apparently accepted this offer -- they are displayed in her shop.

** Trazyn The Infinite's galleries of Solemnace is full re-enactments of various important events through the galaxy. Except the models in the re-enactments were real, living subjects, transformed forever into light hologram by Necron technology. At one point, an Inquisitor sent five regiments to raid the galleries, only to get a letter from Trazyn thanking her for such a marvelous 'gift'.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|1987}}'': one episode has a collector and wax museum owner who's a mix of MadArtist, CollectorOfTheStrange, StalkerWithoutACrush and LoonyFan (of the Turtles) capturing them and April. The Turtles are frozen still with a gas and put on display while the villain prepares to dip April in wax and intends to do the same to the heroes. Irma arrives just in time to unfreeze them and they save the day, battling an army of robots that the villain used as skeletons for his wax figures.

** The embalming of UsefulNotes/EvaPeron involved more than just draining the blood and replacing it with glycerine, though this was done (or, to be more exact, a mixture of alcohol, glycerine and other preservative chemicals); the process, which took a year to complete, also involved replacing the corpse's water content with glycerin and ended up basically plasticizing Evita's body.

* In 1976, a film crew for ''Series/TheSixMillionDollarMan'' started rearranging the props in a Long Beach funhouse for a scene they were shooting. Turns out that what the funhouse's owner had believed to be a mannequin was actually a real cadaver: that of Elmer [=McCurdy=], an Oklahoma outlaw shot in 1911. [=McCurdy=]'s corpse had been embalmed and put on display in sideshows, haunted houses and, yes, wax museums for decades, passing from one owner to the next. Its status as the genuine article was eventually forgotten, [[NightmareFuel until its arm broke off in a crew member's hand]].

The Wax Museum Morgue is a staple setting of the pulp horror movie. Often these things are run by [[MadArtist fanatical sculptors]] who lost their skills at one point (either through disease or by accident) and had to turn to [[MadScientist mad science]] as a way of regaining their ability to express themselves artistically. Never mind the fact that someone has to die for every eerily lifelike statue they produce. Oh no. They're not ones to let little things like ''morality'' and ''ethics'' stand in the way of ''their'' genius. Besides, these people aren't just being given death, they're being granted immortality as well, being forever preserved at the moment in life when they were at their most perfect, their most beautiful. [[SarcasmMode Surely there could be nothing evil or insane about]] ''[[SarcasmMode that...]]''

* An odd case of this occurs with ''ComicBook/TheMightyThor'' foe the Grey Gargoyle. Turned to a substance resembling stone, victims would usually return to normal after a certain amount of time. However, he discovered a way to arrest the process. He then established an identity for himself as a sculptor and began selling his victims as statues.

* ''Radio/TheShadow'': Episode "[[Recap/TheShadowRadioS01E34 Murders in Wax]]" puts a spin on this trope. It isn't a deranged sculptor passing off corpses as wax sculptures; it's a deranged murderer simply removing sculptures of people he has just killed, and putting the corpses in their place. (Naturally in this instance his corpses are quickly discovered.)

* The episode "Elegy" of ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'' involves three astronauts landing on an asteroid where the inhabitants appear to be frozen in scenes of idyllic [[TheFifties 1950s]] life. Of course, the immortal robotic caretaker informs them that the asteroid is really an exclusive cemetery where the rich can eternally partake in their favourite activity after death. And by the way, what would they most like to be doing right now?

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': In "[[Recap/ArrowS2E3BrokenDolls Broken Dolls]]", serial killer The Dollmaker appropriately has this as his [=MO=]. He abducts Quentin Lance (the cop trying to catch him) and his daughter Laurel, intending to subject her to the process in front of her father, but Oliver saves her with a well-placed arrow.

* In ''All-Star Comics'' #38 an insane Wax Museum Guard who had earlier killed the ComicBook/{{Justice Society|OfAmerica}} captures them and tries to turn them into wax figures. However, the ComicBook/BlackCanary impersonates Lucrezia Borgia so the guard gets them out. He then falls into his own wax vat. This comic is also the TropeNamer for HistorysCrimeWave.