"There will be people who buy tickets to "House of Wax" just to see Paris Hilton die.."
My Review on: "House of Wax"
Granted, I must admit that seeing Hilton get impaled through the head, WAS one of the reasons I thought I would enjoy this movie.. I must say it wasn't that bad. After reading many reviews, and other journal entries on the film, I don't think it was that bad. Of course it had your typical "Scary Movie" cast of characters which included a stupid blonde, a nerdy guy, and a black man. It is your typical gory, get scared because it's gross, not because it's that scary kind of movie, and I LOVE that!
A group of friends are on their way to a football game in Baton Rouge. The night before, they camp out in the woods, where they experience a few ominous signs, like a strong stench from the darkness and a dirty pickup truck with a mysterious driver. The next morning, Wade finds his car's fan belt has snapped. Since he's unwilling to leave his car behind, Wade catches a ride with a filthy yokel to the nearest town to buy a new one. Carly goes with him. The rest go on to the game, though later they return because the movie needs victims.
The town shows virtually no hint of a population, except for a few people in the church attending a funeral. The only point of interest here is the House of Wax, a building that, as Wade points out, is literally made of wax. The wax statues within its walls are incredibly lifelike. There's more to the story, though, as Wade and Carly soon find out. The gas station owner, turns out to be a demented stalker. He chases Carly around town while Wade receives the wax treatment courtesy of Bo's brother Vincent.
The other characters are on hand to supply the movie with its necessary elaborate death scenes. What's admirable about "House of Wax" is that it doesn't shy away from gory effects. Wade, Carly, Paige and Dalton are mutilated in unexpected ways. Speaking of elaborate, the ending is thrilling in its execution. A fire starts in the basement of the House of Wax, and the whole building slowly melts away in a prolonged sequence that shows every detail of the house turning into liquid.
No review of this film is complete without commenting on Paris Hilton's performance. The conventions of this genre require a certain kind of character, so there's really no hint of how good she might be as an actress. She delivers exactly what the script demands of her, and is as good as the rest of the cast. Chad Michael Murray, previously seen as a clean-cut preppy kid opposite Hilary Duff in "A Cinderella Story," is appropriately stuck-up all the time. Elisha Cuthbert is a good screamer, in the tradition of Jamie Lee Curtis and Linnea Quigley as the virginal heroine who hides in dark places a lot.
"House of Wax" takes its time to get to the action, mainly to foreshadow what's to come, and to insert some morbid humor and false alarms. For the most part, this is a tight little movie with a good pace and some decent scares. If the writers had stepped outside the box for a moment while drafting the plot line, they might have realized that their project just had a few too many familiar elements.
Matt's Rating:
2 out of 5 stars
"There will be people who buy tickets to "House of Wax" just to see Paris Hilton die - and that's okay. To each his or her own. "
Images and Part of review courtesy of movie-gurus.com