House of Wax Movie Review:


So we all want to see Paris Hilton get stabbed. No, not in that movie. In her big screen debut as a vacuous horror heroine.

Well Paris (Paige), Elisha Cuthbert (Carly), Chad Michael Murray (Nick), Jon Abrahams (Dalton) and the rest of the group of coeds lose their way while trying to take a shortcut to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for an important football game and end up in a spooky little town cut off from civilization. At the centre of this mysterious town is an old wax museum that seems to be the cornerstone of the town’s history. But the museum also holds a deadly secret that has been going on for generations.

The original 1954 classic “House of Wax” which starred Vincent Price had a much more detailed story and focused a lot more on the torment of the film’s central character. This new version has more in common with films like “Wrong Turn” and the remake of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. Matter of a fact I would have to say it’s a direct rip-off of both those films.

It is such a clone of those films that the heroine (Cuthbert) ends up wearing a dirty male undershirt just like Jessica Biel did in the “Texas”. There are also the creepy basement scenes, elaborate killings, disorienting darkness scenes and even oodles of grisly mayhem. Even the killer is reminiscent of Leatherface from “Texas”.

I had a real hard time believing the plausibility of a wax museum tucked away by hillbillies in the middle of a thick Louisiana forest. Ok, if it was a Scooby Doo cartoon I could have found it believable. And haven’t college coeds learned yet that you don’t mess with hillbillies in their own environment.

I also found that none of the co-eds were at all interesting. There are the brother-sister combo of Cuthbert and Murray who seem to have more sexual chemistry than any of the others. That in itself was quite demented but we are talking about the back-country here so maybe it isn’t. It just seemed like in every scene involving Cuthbert and Murray it seemed like they were hot for each other.

Cuthbert does her best to assume the role as the strong female horror heroine but comes off more as the victim role she played on the hit TV series, “24” than a real effective horror female. Jessica Biel in “Texas” and Eliza Dushku in “Wrong Turn” were way more effective.

Then we come to the billionaire heiress slumming it as a horror actress for fun. Paris doesn’t shy to far away from who she is or what her reputation represents. She has probably 2 facial reactions and says her lines like we are in a scripted version of her reality series, “The Simple Life”. The best thing to say about Paris in this film is that she isn’t the worst thing in the film.

The plot, the script, the music, the obvious comparisons, the vacuous acting and the utterly painful pacing of this film make it so hard to watch. The production design, special effects and even some of the death scenes are watchable but not enough to save this train wreck of a film.

Since there are so many blatant rip-offs of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” why didn’t they just call this film “Waxface”. There are oodles of horror films coming this year, my suggestion is skip this one.

So Says the Soothsayer



Dean Kish

This isn't so much a remake of the 1953 Vincent Price classic as a standard slasher movie grafted onto a familiar title. It's the "shortcut through the woods and lost in a creepy town " premise. And it actually works fairly well, thanks to a decent cast and the filmmakers' clear enjoyment of gruesome horror.

Six young people are on their way to the Big Game when they camp near a seemingly abandoned town dominated by a gigantic wax museum that seems to be actually built of wax. Carly (Cuthbert) and her ex-con brother (Murray) are accompanied by Carly's boyfriend (Padalecki), another couple (Hilton and Ri'chard) and their goofy friend (Abrahams). But something's not right in this town, which seems to have only one inhabitant (Van Holt). And then the visitors start disappearing one by one.

Every stereotypical element of the genre is here, from random sex (see Paris run from the killer in her lacy undies!) to dumb decisions (no, I'll wait inside the freaky wax museum while you see what's happening outside!) to a supernaturally strong baddie. But the filmmakers are having fun with these cliches, using them effectively to show why each one is so enduring. This reliance on overused plot elements seriously undermines the scare factor, so they indulge in seriously gory deaths instead. Not nearly as suspenseful, but seriously unsettling.

The cast is surprisingly good, with Cuthbert and Murray, especially, giving it their all and creating just a tiny bit of subtext for their characters. Hilton proves that she can be convincing on screen (who knew?), and Van Holt has just the right faded beauty to be a very creepy screen presence. It helps that the plot takes quite a while to get going; the script spends about 20 minutes setting up the characters and situation before anything freaky happens. This does make the film feel rather long, but never mind. Essentially it's just a mindless popcorn movie that keeps us squirming in our seats for a couple of hours. And it does that rather well.

Rich Cline

On the way to the big game Carly (Cuthbert) and her friends stop to camp overnight in the country. When they wake the next morning, the group find that Wade’s (Padalecki) car’s fan belt has snapped, so Carly and Wade head into the local town of Ambrose to see if they can find a gas station. As the others head to the game, Carly and Wade investigate the town, finding it deserted but at the centre is a House of Wax attraction which Wade really wants to visit. When they enter however, they find that the wax works seem eerily realistic.

As Hollywood’s well of ideas continues to run dry, the film factory returns to the back catalogue to reinvent another classic of the horror genre, but can this modern retelling of the Vincent Price classic have the same impact at the box office or will it just melt away?

With on the name of the film having anything in common with the 1953 original, the new ‘House of Wax’ is a typical Hollywood slasher movie were college students die in increasingly gory ways. While this might not be the most original direction to take the film it is quite enjoyable all the same.

Twins as both victims and villains is an interesting approach. When this is mixed with the premise of corpses becoming exhibits in the attraction, you have an open pallet for grizzly murders. Brian Van Holt plays Bo and Vincent Sinclair, the murderous brothers trying to complete their mother’s dream of a realistic waxwork town but they have taken that vision a bit too far. Now instead of sculpting the figure out of wax, the pair covers their victims in wax for that ultra-realistic look. Each of the college students is picked off in increasing gory and inventive ways that are more fun that they should be, that should delight fans of the genre.

The victims are your typical Hollywood fair. Elisha Cuthbert and Paris Hilton are the eye candy for the piece and they do a really good job. Anyone who has seen the TV series ‘24’ will know that Elisha Cuthbert plays the victim extremely well as she is a great screamer and is a magnet for dangerous situations. She looks gorgeous throughout, even as she becomes more and more bloody as the killings and dangers intensify. Socialite turned actress Paris Hilton does a decent job as prospective victim Paige. Employed totally for her looks and not her acting ability, Paris delivers her limited lines well and even manages to make fun of her own persona in the process. Chad Michael Murray is the only male actor that gets any real screen time as Carly’s wayward twin brother Nick. Having the two leads as brother and sister makes the film more about survival, as it is not dogged down by any romantic connotations that might slow the pace down or fill the film with sentimental claptrap.

‘House of Wax’ is a fun genre horror flick that is more entertaining than you might be expecting. With some inventive death scenes and an over the top finale that you can’t help enjoy, this is the first film from Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis’s horror label Dark Castle that is actually a decent horror movie.

Jamie Kelwick

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