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HOUSE OF WAX (2005)
Where do you even get that much wax? This in-name-only remake (a second-order remake, for that matter) isn't as bad as it could have been, because its second half really is a howl, delivering pretty much what we came for. Lots of great melting-house special effects, bloody deaths, and Paris Hilton getting killed, in a scene which is sure to be one of the most rewound and rewatched in recent years. Still, if Vampires to Vampires: Los Muertos had the worst sequel casting comedown, this has to have the worst remake one, going from Vincent Price and Charles Bronson to Paris Hilton and that kid from 24. And before that second half, House Of Wax is truly terrible. What makes it terrible is mostly in the characters, which might be the most annoying bunch since the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I know that's a selling point with some people ("It makes you sympathize with the killers, which is so disturbing!") but it won't be here. They're on their way to "the big game" (I was not clear for about 45 minutes as to whether some of the teens are playing, or if they're all just spectators) but they're camping out in the middle of nowhere first. There are two hoodlums - the more obnoxious one has a video camera, and the less obnoxious one is the Bad Boy Who Needs Redemption. Bad Boy's sister and her boyfriend form the Couple With Problems. Hilton's the blond chick, and her boyfriend's apparently an amateur rapper. It is worth noting that the amateur rapper is possibly the least annoying character here. While camping, they piss off a local (dumb idea), and wake up to find a car inoperative (they suspect nothing). Two of them hitch a ride to the nearest town (pissing off another local, who obviously knows more than he's telling), where they sneak into the gas station (which is closed for business) and into the big house of wax (which is closed for business), y'know, for kicks. One of them even wanders around a guy's house when he's invited in to take a leak. The first half's one good scene looks like it's leading up to something inspired by Cannibal Corpses "Drowning In Viscera" but it doesn't go that far. The house of the title is actually made of wax - the walls are wax, the floors are wax, even the apparently fully-functioning piano is wax. Before it melts, it's not really much to look at - it just looks like a house, where the finish on everything is either too glossy or not glossy enough. The wax people therein are, well, wax people, and maybe having this in full color limits just how lifelike we can find these wax statues. I remember in the Price movie, I really couldn't tell who was wax and who was alive. Here, I don't think it's even supposed to be a challenge. Anyway, the teens discover the secret of the spooky town, get whittled down to two (when's the last slasher movie you saw with just one survivor?), barely escape with their lives, but the nightmare isn't over...yeah, you get the idea. The second half is an undistinguished slasher movie in structure, but there's a lot of blood and a positively brutal baseball-bat-beating scene - the effects go a long way. But a far cry from all the way. The teens' behavior gets stupider and stupider (one trapped girl, trying to attract attention, pokes a finger up through a storm drain when she could've used the big piece of metal attached to her arm to CLANG CLANG CLANG against it), and this is yet another movie where a facially deformed guy wears a mask for the whole movie until we see him unmasked at the end, and...it's nothing we haven't seen before a few hundred times. Lots of bad nu-metal on the soundtrack; even the guy who's been living in backwoods nowheresville for thirty years listens to nu-metal. Hilton further flogs out her sex-tape notoriety with no subtlety at all, and is cheerfully willing to be killed gruesomely as long as it means people are still paying attention to her. Yes, yes, we all know she has no talent, but she's perfectly up to the task for a movie like this, and brings some hilarity - and it's impossible to say how intentional this is - to a scene where she seductively strips for her boyfriend, snuggles up to him, and picks THAT as a time to tell him one of the last things a guy wants to hear when he's horny. Directed with way, way, way too many overhead shots by music video guy (shocker) Jaume Collet-Serra, this runs a much-too-long two hours and telegraphs every "Boo!" scene so as not to traumatize the 12-year-olds who will probably like this movie the most. I don't know if this guy has ever made a good music video, and he certainly hasn't made a good horror movie, but he has directed a hell of a cool scene where a house melts. (c) Brian J. Wright 2006 BACK TO THE H's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE |