Wax Mask
1997 film by Sergio Stivaletti
Wax Mask (Italian: M.D.C. - Maschera di cera) is a 1997 Gothic horror film. The film is set in Rome where a Wax Museum has opened up, whose main attraction is gruesome murder scenes. Shortly after its opening, people began to vanish as new figures appear in the museum.
After witnessing the poor state of Lucio Fulci's health in 1994, Dario Argento decided to help Fulci by working with him to develop a new project. The two eventually agreed upon a remake of House of Wax. Pre-production lasted longer than expected as Argento had been working on his own film The Stendhal Syndrome. Fulci died in 1996, which led to Argento having special effects artist Sergio Stivaletti enter to direct the film. Stivaletti changed the film's script to focus more on special effects.
Plot
The film begins with the murder of a couple in Paris during the year 1900 by a masked man with a metal claw that he uses to rip out their hearts. The sole survivor and witness to the massacre is a young girl, Sonia, who is discovered by an inspector searching the crime scene, Lanvin.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Wax Mask” is 1997 film by Sergio Stivaletti. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Mask, film and Sergio, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1997 film by Sergio Stivaletti” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1159385. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997, 1994, 1996 and 1900.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
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- Expand the search: follow Wax Mask primary sources, Wax Mask archive and Mask research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Wax Mask” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.