Review of House of Wax (2005) by Jossi D — 16 Jun 2010

Bar the final ten minutes, House of Wax is an incredibly dull and predictable horror film with your usual cardboard cut out characters. It had an excellent premise which could have produced some solid scares but instead we are dealt the usual deformed killer on the loose plot, and a poorly executed one with that.

House of Wax is a remake of the classic 1950's film of the same name starring the legendary Vincent Price, but name is all the two films have in common. A group of teenagers decide to take a road trip to a football game but decide the camp the night on the woods half way there. They end up getting car trouble so they need to find the nearest garage. Two of them hitch a ride with the typical deformed looking hick who brings them to the local town. There they find a garage but it turns out the town is a fake, all the people are made of wax and there are two brothers hell bent on turning them into wax sculptures as well.

It just takes too long to get to the good action part; we have to endure the usual horrible banter between the teenagers, one of which is Paris Hilton! When the kills come they are good and some are particularly gory BUT the main villain is not even slightly menacing as Chad Michael Murray's character (who really is awful as a hard man) can get the better of him quite easily. There are some great effects in the last ten minutes but what came before is just too dull and predictable for us to care. Typically the last shot of the film sets us up for a sequel which, thankfully, hasn't materialised yet.

Dull and predictable, but at least we get to watch Paris Hilton die a slow and painful death.