I was 24 years old when the remake of House of Wax was released in theaters but if you want to get technical, it's the remake of the remake of the original film from the 1930's but lets not get lost in the smallest of details. I discovered horror movies as a child in the early 1990's through the wonderful VHS tapes at my local Family Video and watching the Friday the 13th marathons they used to do every Halloween on TNT. I was introduced to the best era of horror with the Halloween and Friday the 13th franchises and other hits like Monster Squad and the classic Universal Monsters and then in the mid 90's we seen another explosion in horror as we were introduced to Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. We also got a lot of standalone movies as well but as we got into the late 90's and early 2000's we seen a change in the horror genre, I like to refer to it as the MTV style of making films where we got the popular music, pretty faces and fantastic bodies and the end result is the soul of the horror genre was slowly starting to vanish. I know I'm writing in defense of a movie and I'm not trying to wander off topic but this is important to talk about, a lot of horror movies became by the formula and lost its soul and that is something I will always complain about when discussing the horror genre.
I'll admit that a lot of the late 90's and early 00's horror are not my favorite but I always find myself revisiting them because they have a certain charm, they have some elements that work and they always remind me of my younger days. I've owned House of Wax (2005) since it came out on DVD and it's a favorite of mine and earlier this year I upgraded it to blu-ray and decided to revisit it during October and like always I had a good time and a smile on my face. I talked about the film and I started to notice that the majority of the people had a negative reaction towards the film and outright hated it, this baffled me a little bit and got me thinking about the film. I'm honest enough to admit that this film will win no awards and it does nothing ground breaking for the genre, the acting is mediocre and the story is by the numbers. I love this film even with all of its issues and problems and like many films I believe this one will eventually get a 'Cult' following but it will always have people running it into the ground. That's the primary reason I decided to revive Honest to Blog and defend this film which I have loved for over 15 years, I'm not alone in that group either and I hope to get more people to give this film a chance and maybe they'll discover some love for it.
The cast of this film is really a spotlight of the year it was produced in and that's not a bad thing in my opinion, I love the fact that we have a Pre-Supernatural Jared Padalecki playing the doomed boyfriend of Carly Jones played by the gorgeous Elisha Cuthbert. We don't get a whole lot of insight to their relationship in this film but we're not watching that type of movie, we do know their relationship is stressed by her twin brother, Nick Jones, played by Chad Michael Murray. Nick is a bit of a troubled youth and is joined on the trip by once again playing to the formula, his stoner buddy, Dalton Chapman, played by Jon Abrahams. We round out the group with the typical formula of the 'Token Black Guy' Blake Johnson played by Robert Ri'chard. We also get the formula with 'The Slut' Paige Edwards played by none other than Paris Hilton, once again the casting is a reflection of the era and at one point Paris Hilton was relevant in the world of Hollywood. The cast is young and attractive and like any other venture into the horror genre we know that bad things are going to happen to them, typical horror formula but it works to perfection here.
The plot is simple and to the point, the group of characters are on their way to a football game and they take a shortcut, they experience vehicle trouble and end in the clutches of a murderer played to creepy perfection by Brian Van Holt, who pulls double duty playing twin brothers, Bo and Vincent. We also meet the typical creepy redneck Lester who is plated by Damon Herriman, his character does little to the story and is really only there for a reveal in the final moments of the movie.
We got our group of characters we're following along with the 'Big Bads' of the story who are elements of chaos and we are treated to a fun ride, this is a very superficial movie on the surface and I'm aware that is where it begins to lose people. I know very few people who have seen this film or even enjoy it and a lot of it comes back to making jokes about Paris Hilton, she's not the best actress but she does good in this role and lets all admit it, she's easy on the eyes. She also has some of the most memorable moments of the film in my opinion from her jaw dropping strip tease to the sheer brutality of her death scene. I want to know why more people don't remember the sheer brutality in this film because even I had trouble watching some of it, the scene where Wade has his ankle cut in the room is brutal followed by being drugged and covered in hot wax. That type of stuff scares the literal hell out of me on so many levels, the scene where Dalton discovers him in the museum and tries to peel the wax off of him and takes off layers of skin, no fucking way. The gore in this film is why I've always held this movie in such high regards, the kills are awesome and always shown on screen like when Dalton tumbles down the stairs and Vincent takes a pair of scissors and takes his head off. The scene where Bo attacks Carly and straps her to the chair and proceeds to super glue her lips shut, it's brutal to watch her pry them open and try to warn her brother and when she gets her finger chopped off, it's fucking brutal and hard to watch. I'll go back a little to Paige and her epic death scene and chase and this is why I always champion the performance of Paris Hilton in this film, she's amazing and when she takes that pipe through the head, absolute perfection for a horror film death.
I love the look of this film as well from the off the road camping area to the discovery of the ditch full of dead animals, then we get the mysterious town and the absolutely stunning House of Wax design where the entire building is crafted from wax. I guess it's the little things like that I enjoy while watching a film like this, the design of the mask that Vincent wears is so creepy as well and the fact that it's made from wax made me smile. I really think that people need to give films like this a chance because there's a lot more to it than on the surface, I know a lot of people don't really look at films as deep as I do but that's a different topic for another day.
House of Wax (2005) 4/5
Defense of the Film- A solid entry into the horror genre in an era with a lot of forgettable films and while aspects of it are cheesy it delivers in other areas, the brutality and gore of the killings is a highlight and while the characters are mostly one dimensional they are attractive and pretty.
