House of Wax

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Summary:
A group of college friends on their way to a football game take a shortcut, which leads to a detour. Of course, this is a bad thing since they end up stuck in the boonies with strange southern folk around (can it ever be anything else?), and eventually find themselves with broken down vehicles, and enter a small town with a house of wax. The small town is strange, especially when the college visitors start getting killed off.

Review:
This is Jaume Serra's first movie as a movie director, coming (surprise surprise) off of the small screen in music videos to yet another Dark Castle horror movie remake of the week. Nothing new here. But that's expected. All that I expect to get out of this flick is some cool murder scenes, cheap thrills and Paris Hilton getting killed. The thrills were nearly non-existent. In fact, I could time exactly when every single 'boo scare' came up. It goes like this: have the camera close in on a character looking a certain direction, make the music a little scary. Have the character realize there is nothing there upon investigation, silence the music and two seconds later, have them turn around and... BOO! Didn't see the person coming up from behind, did you? Well, I did.
Paris Hilton as an actress sucks harder than her performance in that dark, green-tinted video debut on the internet. Her line delivery is painful to listen to, and her make-out sessions are pathetic. I was not convinced that she dug that guy! She does a little striptease which reveals nothing - and I don't really care because she's ugly - and her final death scene was nice to have (I always dream of her dying), but I was expecting something more from it. I wanted her to suffer! It was all too brief and lacked any tortuous splendor.

The House of Wax itself is a neat concept. The entire house is constructed of wax, from the floors to the staircase and all the rooms. The only thing that ISN'T wax are the people encased under the wax figures. I wouldn't much enjoy being encased with hot wax from head to toe while still alive. The wax artist has a really neat pair of knives with awesome ivory handles that look like a dragon when put next to each other.

Carly and Nick Jones are twins, and this is delivered to us with some tasty exposition in which Carly talks to Nick like he didn't know exactly what he's done in the past. Nick broods and bitches during the whole trip, which makes me wonder why anyone would want to take him along on the long drive to a football game. Especially when he harasses Carly's boyfriend every chance he gets. But he's the one in the group with a 'dark side', and so he has to be a part of this movie. Without him, there would be a few missing cliches here and there. Meanwhile, Carly's boyfriend lets himself into any building he wants and breaks into peoples' property as if there's not a care in the world, or such a word as 'privacy'. I'd kick his fucking ass if I saw him perusing my personal shit in MY house! I'd kill the bastard (if I was a psycho wax artist)!
House of Wax wouldn't be complete without the attempt to throw in a twist here and there, but sadly enough the surprises are uninspiring, and the final reveal was so obvious that I was quoting back the dialogue verbatim at the screen. The only part of the movie which I found fun to watch was the final ten minutes, but that wasn't even enough to really recommend this movie to anyone. What's worse is that it runs for one hour and forty seven minutes until the credits roll, and that is way too long for a brainless horror movie. They could have very easily removed at LEAST fifteen minutes in the first act and got the ball rolling at the House of Wax much earlier than they did. In fact, nothing of any particular relevance occurs in the movie until around the 47 minute mark. I'd say there are about 15 minutes of 'needed' material beforehand.

OK, so after all this bitching and moaning, can I recommend this for a matinee for someone looking for brainless horror and cool kills, and nothing more than entertainment? No, I can't. It pretty much sucked, and the few fleeting moments of imaginative murder sequences did little to keep me watching it or enjoying myself. Go see Amityville Horror instead. At least in that movie, the ladies will be happy with Ryan Reynold's bangin' post-Blade Trinity body, and overall it's more acceptable brainless fare than this ever-slow-burning candle of triteness.

GRADE: D

Reviewed 5/8/05