| Dark Castle�s remake of the Vincent Price classic House of Wax bares almost no resemblance to the original film. It�s very much a modern slasher film about a bunch of �hip and hot� youths who wind up stranded in a very small town with a nasty secret. Coming from the Dark Castle production team, the maestros who brought us some of the worst horror films that the late 90s and 00s had to offer, there was no reason to expect that this one would be any different than the tepid and nonsensical snoozers House on Haunted Hill, Thirteen Ghosts or Ghost Ship. What really irked me about the aforementioned films was that they were so limply conceived that you could almost see the manner in that they were produced. A cool and �creepy� location, hot and fresh faces and potentially interesting premises that go nowhere. With House of Wax seemingly cut from the same mold, there was hardly any reason to assume it would be different this time out and while the film is definitely far from perfect, it is clearly better than it has any right to be. As I noted, the 2005 version of Wax is significantly different than its predecessors (the �53 film of the same name along with Mystery of the Wax Museum) and aside from the house of the title, the similarities end there. The new version introduces us to a group of crappy college students en route to a college football game. When car trouble threatens their trek, they stumble onto a dilapidated old town with a creepy house of wax. As they separate to explore the town (for reasons slightly more convincing than usual), they encounter a mysterious gas station attendant named Bo and are bumped off one by one by a brutal killer. The casting in House of Wax is fairly uneven although I�m not sure it�s entirely the cast�s fault that their characters are so obnoxious. Elisha Cuthbert (The Girl Next Door and TV�s 24) comes off the best as the heroine of the film, probably because the characters are written to type and naturally the lead has to be the nicest, and most innocent of the group. Chad Michael Murray begins the film as an almost intolerable tough guy whose not intimidating in the least. Granted his character does get easier to take as the situation around him gets more serious, but it�s too bad that slasher films seemed to have �evolved� (or is it devolved?) past the charming smartasses you�d likely find in the 80s films. What we�re stuck with is the awful pandering to a youth culture that�s growing more arrogant and obnoxious as the years go by. Much noise has been heard over the casting of Paris Hilton in the part of Cuthbert�s best friend. I can�t deny that Hilton has been overexposed in more ways than one thanks to the media, but she�s really not all that bad here. She doesn�t have much to do, but looks pretty good when she does a fairly hot striptease down to bra and panties. Aside from that, she proves to be a really good screamer and her scene with the killer is one of the best in the film. The worst part about Hilton�s presence in the film is the groan inducing references to her sex tape and catch phrases (�that�s hot�) that the filmmakers threw in for comic relief. The Carey Hayes screenplay also features a ridiculous pregnancy subplot with Hilton�s character and boyfriend (Robert Ri�chard) used previously in Friday the 13th part 3. The best parts of house of wax are all found in the second and third acts. Running a needless 113 minutes the film is overlong by about twenty minutes. Someone could make a case that it takes its time in establishing its characters, but most of that is accomplished in the opening five-minute diner scene. A lot of what follows is simply repetition and with a cast full of people you want to see get knocked off, it would�ve just been better had much of the first act could�ve been jettisoned to get us to the slaughter at lot faster, but thankfully there�s some great payoff. In any other year that didn�t also deliver genre films like Land of the Dead and The Devil�s Rejects, a lot of what�s shown in House of Wax would probably have seemed like a bigger deal. Not that I�m trying to mute the effectiveness of certain scenes because there are a few things in here that I was shocked to see the filmmakers doing (this is a film intended for the MTV teenagers, after all), but the other films hit harder in terms of the desired effect. Still, there are body parts severed, impaling, stabbings and even a nasty dose of child abuse. Parts of the film do make the viewer uncomfortable and that�s always a good thing. This is the first feature length film to be directed by Spanish filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra and it�s a solid debut. When the film moves into the small, abandoned town, he strives to produce a quiet, spooky landscape for the characters to wander. The desolate town with empty homes is a pretty haunting image and the wax museum is pretty cool, complete with dark passages and a nasty basement. There are a few too many funhouse-style jumps (and most of them are silly i.e. the part with the dog), but for the most part, Collet-Serra does succeed admirably in making this more stand out a bit from its peers. The climax is fairly innovative, suspenseful and actually pretty good fun. At least Warner Bros. and Dark Castle opted to give us a slasher film that wasn�t afraid to get down and dirty (unlike Rogue pictures with their PG-13 attempt at the slasher film, Cry-Wolf ) with a hard R rating, for that, they should get some accolades. Horror fans can be a fickle bunch but if you can get around the over- length and the abysmal first act, than there�s enough happening here to warrant a look. It�s not nearly as terrible as you might think. |
| House of Wax (2005) Dir: Jaume Collet-Serra Cast: Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Paris Hilton, Robert Ri'chard Rated R, Approx: 113 minutes A Warner Bros. Pictures Release |
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| Matt's Rating: *** out of 5 |
| Reviewed by Matt Serafini 08/29/05 |