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    House of Wax

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    I’m going to defend the 2005 remake of “House of Wax”. Although the movie has a lot of problems "House of Wax" has a lot of things going for it. I think as far as slasher movies, or horror remakes go, it’s worth looking into. Before you begin you have to know that this isn't really a remake of the 1953 film of the same name. 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 updated special effects. They end up being an inferior interpretation of a good story. In this case, we get a completely different story that feels like another horror film that is appropriately titled "House of Wax".

    Carly (Elisha Cuthbert), her boyfriend Wade (Jarde Padalecki), her troublesome brother Nick (Chad Michael Murray) and their friends Paige (Paris Hilton), Blake (Robert Ri’chard) and Dalton (Jon Abrahams) are on the road when they take a wrong turn and end up with a busted engine. While looking for parts they come upon the town of Ambrose, which has little going for it except for the famous wax museum and the peculiar locals…

    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. I don’t know about you, but if I was attacked and managed to fend off the person that was out to kill me, I’d never let a trusty weapon leave my head, never mind two! Particularly if I’d suspect that there might be more than one killer on the loose. At points their stupidity makes for some unintentional hilarious scenes, like a particularly ghoulish one where a character just can’t stop picking at something they shouldn’t be touching. Thankfully this unintentional hilarity is what makes the less good points of the film genuinely entertaining, as you try and figure out what the mystery of this House of Wax is while these dummies run waiting to get slashed.

    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 final fight for survival in the titular 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". I have a lot of affection for this movie, if only because the premise is fun, there are some good kills and the conclusion is strong.

    "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 slasher films. You can watch this one and the original and not feel like you’re just treading on the same ground. I think “originality” isn’t quite the word, but it’s decent horror movie fun. (On Dvd, February 7, 2013)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  1.8.2015 age: 26-35 2,866 reviews

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