CORPORATE LINE: What begins as a weekend getaway for six friends becomes a terrifying fight for their lives in HOUSE OF WAX, an exciting re-imagining of the 1953 horror classic from Dark Castle Entertainment and producers Joel Silver and Robert Zemeckis.
A road trip to one of the biggest college football games of the year takes a turn for the worse for Carly (ELISHA CUTHBERT), Paige (PARIS HILTON) and their friends when they decide to camp out for the night before heading to the game. A confrontation with a mysterious trucker at the camp site leaves everyone unsettled, and Carly has her hands full trying to keep the peace between her boyfriend Wade (JARED PADALECKI) and her hot-headed brother Nick (CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY).
They wake up the next morning to find that their car might have been deliberately tampered with. At the risk of being stranded, they accept a local’s invitation for a ride into Ambrose, the only town for miles. Once there, they are drawn to Ambrose’s main attraction – Trudy’s House of Wax, which is filled with remarkably life-like wax sculptures. But as they soon discover, there is a shocking reason the exhibits look so real.
As the friends uncover the town’s dark secrets, they are stalked by a mysterious killer and find themselves in a bloody battle for survival. The group must find a way out of Ambrose – or become permanent additions to the HOUSE OF WAX.
THE GOOD: House of Wax is completely shameless, dirty, and exploits sexuality. What kind of scary movie would it be without all three of those? It’s expected and fans get it. There is no doubt this is a teen film. The teen boys get their nearly naked Paris Hilton and the girls get a handful of hot guys—win-win.
THE BAD: House of Wax is nothing but a color-by-numbers horror movie. Everything that Scream did to make fun of scary films, House of Wax proves that there is an instruction manual to horror movies.
There is no evolution to the horror genre and everyone does their best to prove how idiotic these movies can be. A town not on the GPS and yet they somehow made it their shortcut? In this day and age who parks on the side of the road and camps for the night? These kids obviously have money; one guy drives a $50,000 pickup, but can’t pay for a hotel? A truck pulls up and creeps them all out by sitting there watching and they don’t leave once it goes? There is more stupidity that is merely a waste of time. Finally, an extremely creepy guy says he’ll take them to town and they let the sexy girl go? Only in a movie.
FRANKLY: The bad guys might be bad but never interesting. You aren’t going to confuse these morons for Vincent Price. The kids are even dumber. Kids might not act it, but they are much more saavy and wise today and yet act completely naive and brain-dead here.
High Schoolers will inevitably like House of Wax. Paris Hilton has become a twisted sort of love-to-hate sex symbol and there is some joy in her onscreen performance or lack-thereof. House of Wax is what it is—a dopey horror flick.
+ Charlie Craine
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