THE WAX FACTORY BY JUSTIN BIENVENUE - BOOK REVIEW

What comes to mind when you think of wax? Candles, probably. Maybe a museum. Maybe that one Simpsons episode where Homer drinks the wax to eat the Guatemalan Insanity Pepper. I’m getting off topic, this is a horror book review. So, let’s focus on why you’d think about a museum when asked about wax. I’m guessing because they are super freaky, there’s even a Vincent Price movie about one. Now let’s take a step up the wax chain, and think about the factory that produces this stuff. Gotta be a pretty creepy place, right? Well, Justin Bienvenue thought so when he gave us The Wax Factory. And while the promise is there to scare us senseless, in the end the book couldn’t deliver on that promise.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the concept is there. We can see a good novel hidden underneath the layers of wax. We get a group of college students visiting the recently reopened for tours factory researching historic locations. There is the kooky owner, Gustav Vandaldrake, that happens to be the great grandson of Ghyslain, the founder of the factory. Old machinery litter the large Gothic factory, there’s a basement with hidden rooms, an incinerator, and giant vats of wax. This is all great fodder for a horror story about a wronged factory owner that believes wax is the future. 

I was totally on board for having my life be in the hands of a mad man. Then I met our cast of heroes and everything fell apart. They are a complete bore that fit into your typical B-movie stereotypes, but not in a way you could enjoy. No one stands out or has an arc that will keep you interested. There is a moment near the end where our villain forces the heroes to reveal a terrible secret(force is a strong word, more like asks), which you’d think would be a perfect moment to inject a layer of conflict or depth to our characters, but instead just turns into random secrets that have no bearing on the plot. I’m all for cheesy characters, but there needs to be something for us to latch onto and unfortantely our heroes just don’t cut it.

This leads us to our villain, Gustav, who does his part to carry the novel. Bienvenue had a lot of fun making the factory owner bizarre. At the beginning he is a likable old man enjoying the chance to talk about wax, but slowly we start to see cracks until he is rambling about ghosts, monsters, and living forever. Hell, at one point he even eats wax. I couldn’t help but get a Willy Wonka vibe off him that I quite enjoyed. It’s really hard putting the weight of a book on one character’s shoulders and while I think he did a decent job, it wasn’t enough to save the novel.

Where Bienvenue does shine is in his descriptions of violence and setting. He puts us into the factory and we feel the years of dust, wax, and grime on each floor. He haunts us with walls that bleed wax, ghosts that continue to work the factory, hallways that appear to shrink. If you’d told me I could visit this place in real life, I’d believe you after the details Bienvenue delivers. And let’s talk about the moments of violence he springs on us. For long chunks of the novel it’s mainly dialog and people walking around, but then he throws in a bout of visceral violence that reminds us this place is not safe. Deformed monsters dig into stomachs searching for eyeballs, people drown in wax, fingers get jabbed into mouths. This sense of danger definitely keeps us on our toes.

A good setting, violence and evil bad guy doesn’t mean much if the plot doesn’t work. And unfortunately in this case, it just didn’t. There are too many moments of our heroes going along with Gustav after he’s proved time and time again to not be good. He threatens them, then says he was just kidding, and the heroes give him another chance. Nothing is keeping the heroes here, they are not tied up, no one is kidnapped, the door seems to be unlocked, yet they don’t try to run away or fight. Maybe we are supposed to believe this is going for a B-movie vibe, but even those give us something to understand why the characters are in danger(for the most part). I just couldn’t buy the actions of any of the characters other than they needed to move the plot along.

I really think there is a great story in here. The potential is oozing out of the pages. We have a villian that is insane, we have a location begging to be explored, and the idea of wax is always creepy. Bienvenue can weave great descriptions that make us believe we are there. But, his heroes and plot get in the way of something really fantastic. 

THE WAX FACTORY BY JUSTIN BIENVENUE

Sometimes, places are abandoned for a reason...Would you enter a sinister looking factory without knowing what awaits you on the other side?All Dmitri Townsend wanted was the perfect college project. Needing to find a historical building to do a report on, he wants to stand out from everyone else. However, he should have taken a good long look at the Wax Factory because the outside is only slightly terrifying compared to what’s on the inside.
At first all seems well during the tour but when Dmitri, his girlfriend Melina and their friends get to adventure on their own their curiosity gets the best of them and strange things happen. The deeper they go the more odd things become and before they know it they feel their lives may be on the line. This place may have it’s fascinating facts but will this be the college project to die for?
Gustav Vanaldrake dreams of reopening the factory that his great-grandfather was forced to sell. However, there’s something a bit off about him that no one can quite figure out. What exactly is Gustav hiding and why does he seem so weird?

---