House of Wax (2005)

It is wax, like... literally. - Wade, regarding the museum in town's unique construction

Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this, my friends.  I intended to review this back in October along with the other wax films, but other things got in the way.  But, I'm back now, and as promised, I'm continuing the wax museum motif with 2005's Tourist Trap... er, I mean House of Wax remake!  Like many other films, I saw this one before I saw the originals, so it was a new experience for me.  Of course, the film, in essence, doesn't share as much with its named predecessors as it does my previous review, but we'll get to that shortly!

After a flashback to a pair of brothers who we don't see as babies, one a good little boy, the other apparently a bit of a hellion, we meet our main characters in the present day: Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) and her boyfriend, Wade (Jared Padalecki) and brother, Nick (Chad Michael Murray); Paige (Paris Hilton) and her boyfriend, Blake (Robert Ri'chard), not to be confused with the really close brother and sister team from the second season of The Amazing Race; and friend and avid cameraman, Dalton (Jon Abrahams).  The motley group is heading to a major football game in New Orleans, and along the way, take a detour that leaves them in the middle of nowhere, where they run afoul of someone in a pickup.  The next morning, Nick's car's fan belt has broken, so he and Carly hitch a ride with a weird guy who picks up roadkill for a living (Damon Herriman) who takes them to a weird town that seems abandoned.  That's never a recipe for disaster, right?  Right!?

When this film came out, one of the big draws for it was that it was Paris Hilton's first motion picture.  She'd been known for her series, The Simple Life, where she and friend Nicole Richie got away from their rich girl roots and took up different jobs.  Due to the show, Hilton got a reputation for being a bit of an idiot because of their antics.  She did really well in this film with the screen time she's given, but the movie belongs to Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray, as well as Brian Van Holt.

The set design was good, the town the players are stuck in looking like something out of the 1950s.  The house itself dominates every scene it's in.  As the film quote mentions, the place is made out of wax, walls, floors, everything, which leads to an amazing digital scene later on.  The special effects are amazing, too, besides the digital scene I mentioned, we get a sliced face and, of course, the flowing hot wax (some of it's probably real, of course, but I don't know if all of it was).

Originally entitled Wax House, Baby, after a crew member thought the House of Wax name was unavailable, the film was retitled to House of Wax after the naming rights were guaranteed secured.  However, the film itself actually bears more or a resemblance to Tourist Trap than to the Vincent Price film (or The Mystery of the Wax Museum that preceded that).  Both this and Tourist Trap feature a group of friends who get sidetracked to an out of the way tourist attraction where they're picked off one by one.  Both films also feature a set of brothers making life miserable for our protagonists.  They also both feature victims being turned into part of the attraction.

So, what were my thoughts on the film?  I enjoyed it.  I liked the plot of the film, the acting was good (yes, even from the much-maligned Paris Hilton), the suspense was up there and we got some good jump scenes, as well.  All in all, I give the film a 4 out of 5.  So, while I still had three more movies to cover on the Week of Wax, I'll be skipping to the end of the original October coverage.  With Friday the 13th coming up, I'll be bringing you my review of Friday the 13th Part 2 for that day.  We'll also have a break in the fact that Valentine's Day and President's Day both coming up, I'll have something special for the weekend, too.  Until then, take care of yourselves, and this is Red Hawk signing out!