House of Wax (2005)

Originally Written
Saturday, September 23, 2006

I don't know why, but I expected a lot more from House of Wax. First off I had the wrong idea as to what this film was about prior to viewing it. I assumed it was about a group of teenagers going to a wax museum and getting killed by wax figures that suddenly came to life, I was wrong. I also thought if there wasn't a film that Paris Hilton could ruin it was a teen slasher in which acting is not a requirement, I was wrong again. Your not going to hear me admit to being wrong that often, because frankly I'm not, but in this case House of Wax ends up going down in flames with one spark, literally.

The story surrounds a group of friends on the road to a football game, but when it gets a little late they decide to take a pit stop on the side of the highway, in the middle of nowhere, to camp for the night. Weird things begin happen immediately as the group is overwhelmed by a horrendous smell, which they later discover is a pile of dead deer carcasses, and the strange appearance of a truck that beams its' highlights at them then drives away. The next morning they find that one of the fan belts on their cars is busted, is it bad luck or vandalism?

At this point part of the group decides to split and continue on to the football game while Wade and his girlfriend Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) get a ride from a rather interesting character who tells them there is a small town about 15 miles up the road where they can get another fan belt. When they arrive they discover a house of wax and decide to check it out, even though the sign on the door says closed. After breaking a few items and almost lighting the place on fire they head down to the local gas station to pick up a replacement belt from a guy named Bo. Unfortunately Bo doesn't have the size they need but offers to take them up to his house where he does have one.

It's at this point when the killing spree begins as Wade is attacked by a strange man and Carly barely escapes when she realizes Bo is the guy in the truck from the night before. The rest of the group has made their way back to the campsite after hitting nothing but traffic and Carly's brother sets out to give her and Wade a ride back, unaware of what he's about to get himself into. As it turns out the town is deserted and everyone who used to reside there has been coated in wax! So it appears the statues in the house of wax are more lifelike than one would believe. Carly and her brother must try to escape the town and save who they can before they too become statues in the house of wax!

I had too many problems with this film, which flushed away any entertaining aspects I could have gained from it. For starters the beginning is completely useless, it’s another occasion where writers feel they need to provide the viewer with some useless character information that does nothing to excel the story, it's only time filler. The first 25-30 minutes is completely and utterly boring, dragging on as you're bombarded with pointless teenage chatter and wandering.

Secondly, the utter stupidity of the characters and total unbelievably of the film in general ruined everything for me. If I'm in the middle of nowhere and some guy in his truck pulls up and stares at me, never responding to my calls, I'm not going to stick around and camp for the night... common sense. Next I'm not going to be barging into places as if I own them when signs clearly state closed, and third I'm not going into some strangers house to use the bathroom and then start snooping around. Of course if none of this occurred then this film would never have existed, but is that really such a bad thing!?!

To continue the unbelievably factor, a wax museum would have been much more believable than an actual wax museum made of wax. Maybe I'm wrong again but I don't find that to be remotely possible. For one, where did all that wax come from? There weren’t enough deer bodies to get that much wax from their bones, and there is absolutely no way that wax floors and stairs could support so much weight, or a house made completely of wax last in the sun.

Finally the acting in House of Wax is beyond horrible, even for a horror flick. Of course Paris Hilton doesn't help matters and she actually made the film worse by adding absolutely nothing but pointless dialogue. She’s not acting here, this is her and I half excepted the phrase "that's hot!" to be uttered, which would have been great last words for her to say after getting speared in the head. But even some of the "better actors" had horrible lines, Elisha said "cool" so many times that I couldn't believe someone actually got paid to write this mess!

In the end, House of Wax is a poor attempt at remaking a horror classic. The only aspect the film succeeds in is completely grossing you out with the torture and killings, but even then it's never scary and completely predictable. But if you can sit through 45 minutes of drivel to see almost everyone get killed off in literally 10 minutes, then suffer through another 30 minutes of running and hiding, by all means this film is for you.

4/10