House of Wax (2005) follows a bunch of six American teens out on a road trip to see a football game. After a little fiddling with the GPS in one of the cars the gang get lost and are forced to make camp for the night in a remote part of the countryside.
During the night the camp is visited by someone in a jeep who never gets out but makes the kids a little nervous anyway. The next morning one of the two cars they’re travelling in is found to have a broken fan belt so all bar two of the group head off to the game, leaving the cars owner and his girlfriend to head into a nearby town to get the part for the car.
In town they run into an unsavoury mechanic who tells them the story of the family that ran the wax museum in the town and the tragedy that befell them, despite the amazingly realistic wax sculptures that were once a tourist attraction.
Of course, bad things start to happen to our intrepid football fans and they quickly discover that there’s more to the town then just great wax statues.
Cry, bitch! (how I fucking hate Paris Hilton)
It’s important when discussing the 2005 version of House of Wax (yep, it’s a remake, soon I’m going to stop mentioning that as so many of these films are remakes) to state right from the start that Paris Hilton does get killed in this film. However, as far as I’m concerned, her death was a poor one, over far too quickly and with nowhere near enough gore.
Hilton aside, House of Wax is not a bad film. For a change it’s easy to like some of the characters in this movie, so you do feel concern for them as they go through the motions of their ordeal. Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) is likeable as is her brother, even the villain of the piece is someone you don’t mind seeing on screen.
One of the other things I really liked about House of Wax is the soundtrack which features great music from bands like Deftones and Marilyn Manson, though there are times where figuring out the name of a certain song playing in the background or just thinking about a band is preferable to watching the movie, especially in the first act or so which is a little slow as it’s setting the scene for the action to take place.
Certain scenes in House of Wax feel very familiar - the ankle cut that marks the beginning of the violence is a wound that was made popular by Hostel, though as far as I can figure, House of Wax came first – in fact all the horror in House of Wax is a tad familiar and on that front there’s nothing new here – still I can’t bring myself to really dislike this movie.
One Thumb Up and One Thumb Down for House of Wax.
Two Thumbs Down for Paris Hilton.
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Wax_(2005_film)
imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397065/
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