Harpers Ferry, West Virginia - John Brown Wax Museum

About 10 wax scenes of John Brown's life "from the cradle to the gallows" as the brochure says. Lighting is a little unfortunate -- all the scenes are enclosed in glass... and there's some glare, which makes it kinda hard to see.

Creepiest scene award goes to the final display... the animation caught me by extra surprise because I got distracted by all the brochures that had been dropped by previous viewers (it's the only scene that isn't enclosed) I won't ruin the surprise. The second creepiest is the dying guy who is in a state of perpetual final gasps... "wooo! hooo!" air pumps. The corniest has to be the "fight" scene, where the narrator explains that it was decided to take John Brown's men "by FORCE" -- the lighting and fighting sound fx are so realistic.

Highly recommend breezing through the plain old free John Brown museum first so that you have some idea of what happened before you go in to the wax museum...

Today (11/8/01) they were putting up facades for a movie set (gods and generals? angels and generals? some famous civil war book that they are making into a movie). [Puck, 11/11/2001]

I recommend the John Brown museum in Harpers Ferry. It's a very twisted wax museum portrayal of the John Brown slave uprising. The narrator's voice is downright eerie, and the tone seems rather pleased that the uprising failed. I haven't been there in a while, so my report is rather limited... [Aaron Golub, 09/12/1999]