Review of House of Wax (2005) by Adam F — 08 Feb 2013

Although the movie has a lot of problems "House of Wax" has a lot of things going for it and that makes it worth your while. Before you begin you have to know that this isn't really a remake of the previous House of Wax film. The story is completely different and aside from a few ideas they have very little in common. Is that really such a bad thing though? One of the criticisms of remakes is that they're just the same story with different actors and effects and they end up being an inferior interpretation of a good story. In this case however, we get a completely different story that feels like another horror film that should be called "House of Wax".

The film doesn't start off very strongly, with all of the same tired horror tropes being set up, from the suspicious looking redneck to the unfamiliar "short cut", to the creepy isolated town that isn't on the map and the dumb teenagers deciding to split up and explore places where they have no business being in. In fact several of the characters in the film are incredibly stupid (If you were just attacked and managed to fend off the person that was out to kill you, would you really ditch not one but two weapons, especially knowing there might be more killers out there?) and at points their stupidity makes for some unintentional hilarious scenes (like when a character finds his friend trapped and accidentally destroy his face but then doesn't stop picking at it). In fact this unintentional hilarity is what makes the movie entertaining, as you try and figure out what the mystery of this House of Wax is while these dummies run around like fools.

The film has a great climax that features excellent special effects. Most of these are practical (and the ones that aren't, there is no way you could do them without an enormous budget) and it makes for a really entertaining third act. This conclusion totally makes up for all of the nonsense that was on the screen previously and it's well worth your time sitting through the movie just to see the spectacular fight for survival in the House of Wax. You still have to be in the right mood to see this though, as the very last frames of the movie introduce a really dumb and pointless "twist". "House of Wax" is by no means a great horror movie or even a particularly frightening one but it's got great effects, sets and production, a lot of energy and in the end it's better than most "dead teenager" movies. (Dvd, February 7, 2013).