 How many horror films were original in 2005? By original,
I mean not a remake or a sequel. Let’s see, there was The Skeleton Key, and The
Devil’s Rejects and… I give up. I guess what
makes this year’s House Of Wax stand
out is that it is a remake of a remake. But even at that,
it has little-to-nothing in common with the 1953 version of House Of Wax starring Vincent Price, or 1933’s Mystery Of The Wax Museum. Fact is, there
is little “mystery” at all. This Wax is a slasher film through and through, although it has enough
network stars that it almost counts as a TV on DVD release.
Our plot starts off with a bunch of friends going out to
see “the game,” cleverly omitting any solid details
about their destination. It really doesn’t matter. They
decide to pull over for the night and party in the forest.
Everything goes fine until a truck pulls up to their campground
to intimidate them. So the next morning they wake to find
that their fan belt is broken and a camera is missing. This
is only the first of many tragedies to befall our ill-fated
teens. Truly horrifying is the scene where Paris Hilton and
Co. are stuck in traffic and late for “the game.”
(By the way, this summary just saved you 30 minutes of sitting
around waiting for something to happen. Skip a few chapters,
you’ll thank me).
Staying in the town are Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) and her boyfriend
Wade (Jared Padalecki). They go into the neighboring town
to pick up a new belt for the truck. Now, if the fact that
the town is more than conspicuously vacant didn’t put
them off immediately, the fact that the station is selling
petrol at only $1.15 a gallon in 2005 should have. But as
I said this is a slasher film, and logic needs to go out the
window in order for things to flow. They decide to take it
upon themselves to go to the town’s wax museum and do
a little investigating.
You know what happens next – remember, I said this
was a slasher film. As is to be expected, they get stalked
by the villain and their friends come back to befall the same
fate.
 As
a film, House Of Wax befuddled me, because
while it has its highs and lows, there seems to be no middle
ground between them. For a film with such a devastatingly
long opening, one would expect some character development.
There isn’t any. While you get a general idea of who
each of the teens are, they are essentially faceless slasher
fodder, victims of clichés and poor writing. The teens
don’t talk like real teens do, they don’t act
like real teens do, and no one answers their goddamned phone.
Immediately after watching the film, I remembered only three
or so character names. The rest were “the black kid”
(naturally, he dies. This isn’t a spoiler. He is a black
kid in a slasher film – think about it), “the
goofy stoner kid”, and Paris. Paris isn’t the
character’s name (that’s Paige) but she looks
like she walked right off The Simple Life and into this movie. Since she can’t act her way out
of a wet paper bag this disassociation is impossible. Carly,
the main heroine, toggles back and forth from being very smart
to very stupid. This is still a step up from her role in 24,
where she was 40 times more stupid than any living female
could be, or The Girl Next Door, which also
couldn’t figure out what type of movie it wanted to
be. Carly’s brother (Chad Michael Murray) represents
the group badass with a heart of gold. He’s “misunderstood”
and looks good enough to strut around without a shirt. When
it comes to being the only male with balls, he pulls it off.
He gets the most development - which is to say, not much at
all. Even the villain, who happens to be named Vincent in
what appears to be the only homage to the 1953 film, has a
back-story that is implausible and illogical. But at least
this all matches the rest of the film, which has so many plot
holes I half-expected a gopher to pop out of one.
Where House Of Wax succeeds is in its gratuitousness
and surprisingly unreserved murder sequences. They are inventively
cruel and aren’t toned down in the slightest. It earns
its R-rating. I wish more films of the genre would have the
cajones to stick with the gore instead of pandering to the
largest possible audience. I especially liked how the film
did not ease up on the victims boasting a lot of star power.
No one is left unscarred in some manner, no matter how pretty
or which TV show you were from. I dig that. Don’t get
me wrong, if you have seen the ultra violent exploitation
films of the ‘70s’ you aren’t going to see
anything surpassing those, but compared to the rest of the
2000s’ teen horror output it’s impressive.
The stylish camera work by director Jaume Collet-Serra is
also impressive since it’s his first feature film. Lots
of cool, odd camera angles that really capture the awesome
set design. I especially dug the scene in the movie theatre
that was still playing What Ever Happened To Baby
Jane?. I’ll look forward to seeing where this
director goes next. The finale is also extremely cool. I won’t
spoil it for you, just know that it features some great wax-laden
special effects, bodies melting together, and an Indiana Jones-style
escape sequence. It’s well implemented and makes for
an ending that almost makes up for the extremely mundane build-up
in the first half.
The film is decent, if imbalanced.
Presentation
This incarnation of House Of Waxis presented
in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. (A full screen version is
also available but, you know, screw that.) It is a serviceable
transfer, but hardly demo material. For the most part the
film is very dark, and in that darkness compression artifacts
aren’t too uncommon. I noticed them and I don’t
have that fantastic of a set-up. Still, this isn’t a
transfer you would return the movie over.
The audio is also rather blah. There
are cool and gruesome sound effects like when Carly gets her
finger snipped and during the climax. What is disappointing
is the score never really gets a lot of focus. I thought it
was a nice score and fit the tone of the film rather well.
The audio is available in French and Spanish. It also has
removable subtitles for all three audio tracks. Are you a
deaf Mexican? No worries, this release will cater to you.
 Extras
B-Roll and Bloopers Video Cast Commentary–
(26:28) - This is an interesting twist. When you have a cast
that is too immature do a real commentary they just sit around
talking shit about each other while watching clips of the
movie and drinking java. The cast commentary is shown on the
top half of the screen while behind-the-scenes stuff goes
on in the bottom. Yeah, I get that the cast are friends, or
at least act like friends. Who cares though? You won’t
learn anything here and it runs too long. I’ll take
a real commentary track any day.
Wax On: The Design of House of
Wax – (7:24) - If you like production design, this
feature won’t be a waste of time. The designers and
producers together created and built an entire town in 10
weeks. Naturally, there is special attention to the wax museum
which, for a large part, really was wax! Pretty cool.
It’s short but informative and entertaining.
House Built On Wax –
(10:11) - This feature starts off with some cool special effects
work showing that they used CGI as sparingly as possible.
It also shows how they did the villain’s make-up effect.
A great deal of time is spent on a melting effect from the
grand finale (which is very awesome). The actors and crew
talk, albeit very little, about the 1953 film’s inspiration
on this film, which isn’t much.
Gag Reel – (3:16) -
Usually I dig these gag reel features, but the thing is, it
simply isn’t that funny. There are a few, seconds long,
bits at the start that are amusing, but most of the remainder
is actors breaking into laughter for no apparent reason. Pretty
droll. Listening to Paris Hilton fake-scream is, nevertheless,
life altering.
Alternate Open: Jennifer Killed–
(1:37) - A deleted opening scene showing the first victim,
who is unrelated to the group of friends that we follow in
the main feature. Personally, I think they should have left
this in since it would have worked in the film’s favor
in getting things rolling.
From Location: Joel Silver reveals
House of Wax – (1:31) - This is a dumb little promo
piece in which Joel Silver explains how this is the fifth
film (and fourth remake) from Dark Castle Entertainment before
finally getting run over by a car. Worthless, except for noting
how much Joel looks like Shoegaze99 and then imagining Shoegaze99 getting hit by a car.
Trailers – Forced trailers
for Tales
From The Crypt: The Complete First and Second
Season, and A
Scanner Darkly start out the package. The trailer
for this version of House of Wax is accessible
as a bonus feature.
 And
Now Some Parting Words
There were few original horror films in this past year. Hell,
there were few original movies, period. I have to admit that
I was surprised when I found this new version of House
Of Wax to be better than most remakes. Then again,
it isn’t really a remake and I am no huge fan
of the Price version either. Still, I respect this film for
doing several things. The destruction of annoying celebrities
is always welcome; doing it with a strong visual style is,
too. But most important, it attempts to be an honest-to-goodness
slasher film in a decade that has been far too generous with
PG-13 watered-down horror. I have a feeling that audiences
will either love or hate this, but everyone should give it
a watch on a boring day, if only for the awesome finale.
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