With a cliché plot that doesn’t even resemble the original film and acting that is far from great, House of Wax fails to bring anything worth really watching to the screen. It also doesn’t come close to living up to the 1953 classic version with horror icon Vincent Price.
Instead of following the original’s story, we get a slick and unbelievable plot that seems to be more a poor man’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre with wax instead of power tools. We also have to sit through some pretty bad acting from the likes of Paris Hilton – who thankfully gets killed.
The movie follows a pretty standard horror path with a group of kids, including Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, and Hilton, as they travel the back roads of Texas to attend a college football game. Of course, they never make it because the group run into car trouble, and end up in a town where everyone seems to be made of wax.
From there, the movie goes into cliché overdrive with the two surviving members of the group, who just happen to be twin brother and sister, fighting the two crazy brothers that have created this wonderful wax town. This struggle for survival pretty much brings the whole House of Wax crashing (or melting in this case) down around them.
Even the killers in the movie are less than inspiring or even halfway scary. One brother is a redneck psycho, and the other is a deformed psycho who wears a mask of wax and never speaks – think of him as a blend of Leatherface, Michael and Jason only his name is Vincent.
There is a halfway interesting back-story to the two killers, but I don’t want to give away the spoilers in the review. Lets just say both boys grew up in a rather abusive home, something you see in the opening credits, and it was pretty clear that psycho was the only career choice available to them.
Although House of Wax fails to offer anything really horrifying in the remake, it does have some pretty decent special effects. It also has enough gore and blood being sprayed on screen to hold your interest through most of the film.
Everything in the House of Wax, including the walls, floor and ceiling, are made of wax, and of course the wax statues have a sinister secret of their own. The way Vincent makes his sculptures is about the only connection the remake has to the Price version, and the update makes sure to make the process a bit gorier than the 1953 film.
House of Wax delivers on gore but not scares
Even with some pretty decent special effects, the movie has so many plot holes and problems that it becomes weighted down towards the end. It is really slow at the beginning and takes too long with the group on the road. Once the killing does start, it seems like the entire cast is nothing but fodder for the two brothers so that we can get to the twins fighting twins plot.
Chad Michael Murray is just plan annoying in the film, and it almost seems like he is just as upset as we are that he is in the movie. He is mad throughout the whole film, and is unbelievable as some tough big brother fighting to save his twin sister. You really find yourself rooting the psychos will get rid of him, and put us out of our misery.<!--page-->
Vincent is an artist and a psycho
Also, the ending where the entire house is melting is cool, but too far-fetched to work. The actors are crawling through melted walls, dangling from melting floors, and are never once burnt. I guess the fire is hot enough to melt the wax, but not hot enough to burn the actors rolling around in the wet melted wax. The fire also melts the wax really fast, and helps to make the film’s ending just too unbelievable.
The DVD comes with some pretty decent special features including a look at how they designed the House of Wax and the town; the amount of work that went into creating the special features; working with the wax; and the problems the melting wax brought to the filming.
The special features also include a B-roll and a gag reel from the movie (which is hosted by members of the cast), and an alternate opening that doesn’t really add much to the film.
Cuthbert and Murray fight to survive
I wouldn’t recommend the House of Wax to anyone who loved the classic Price version or anyone wanting to watch a truly scary horror movie. If you want a horror movie that doesn’t require much thought, then this is a fun ride, but it is also very predictable. The film is slow in the beginning, but once the killing starts it goes into overdrive.
Overall, the movie is a slick “popcorn” remake of a great horror film that fails to live up to any of the elements that made the original a classic. The movie is loaded with every horror cliché you can find, from the group of stranded kids to a disfigured silent killer, and its ending is just too unbelievable to work. The film does manage to have some good special effects and a pretty high body count. It fails to deliver a good solid plot or even a minimal amount of scares.
House of Wax is available at Amazon and AmazonUK . Visit the DVD’s database for more information.
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