Giving opinions for several years and showing like a fine vintage
Giving opinions for several years and showing like a fine vintage
Member since:11.07.2000
Reviews:625
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Dark Castle Entertainment was set-up to produce some great horror genre pictures based on horror from the fifties. The men behind such as visionary company are Joel (The Matrix/Lethal Weapon) Silver and Robert (Back To The Future/Roger Rabbit) Zemeckis. Now between them they've produced or directed some good movies. So why is it that all the films they've produced so far under this banner have pretty much sucked or been incredibly under-whelming?
After such MTV-inspired dreck such as 13 Ghosts and Gothika we now get House of Wax. On the DVD the producers come up with the line that it's based on the incredibly fun Vincent Price film of the same name. Well it shares the same name and the idea that some of the waxworks are actually corpses. Apart from that everything in it is from 'Hollywood Horror Movie 101'.
Bunch of American teens on road trip? - Check! Token
black guy - Check! Weird looking redneck guy? - Check! Teen who's a bit pissed off at everyone? - Check! Scream queen in tight top? - Check! Soundtrack of R&B and Nu-metal? - Check!
The story goes like this. A bunch of teens take a road trip to see the big football game in the city. They stop off in the middle of nowhere, have a 'get orf me land!' kind of moment and awake to find their car has been tampered with. Naturally two of them go off to get it fixed and are taken to a deserted town by a creepy guy. Obviously their parents never told them not to talk to strangers and certainly not to accept lifts off them. In this little town they encounter very little apart from a house made out of wax. Inside are lifelike waxworks and general creepiness, naturally the house is shut but they still go in. Of course general hijinks ensue involving a crazy guy making waxworks of said teens and generally adopting a very nasty style of screen gore.
House of Wax is nothing new; it's not really got anything cool in it either. The film is pretty much devoid of scares and instead goes for the jugular and dispatches victims in incredibly nasty ways that leave a sour taste in the mouth. I knew exactly how this film was going to end from the outset as it just follows every cliché in the book. The visuals are nice looking but that doesn't make a film. The only thing it has going for it is that Paris Hilton features in the film and get's a gruesome send off - big deal. If it had Elisha Cushbert getting her top wet then my interest may have been peaked but it was not to be. Go and seek out the original House of Wax, it's far better.
Film aside, House of Wax has a nice transfer and audio mix. The film has a nice colour scheme and some decent visuals at times. These are all pretty pristine on DVD. I cranked up the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmix and got some great surround sound experiences. There's a good amount of bass, the music is well mixed and John Ottman doing the score is never a bad thing.
Extras wise there's some decent fare. For 26-minutes you can have some of the cast talk on a sofa as they watch b-roll footage of various scenes being shot. All the while I was wondering what Elisha Cuthbert had in the mug she cradles during the whole thing.
7-minutes are spent on how the house and look of the film was designed. It's the usual fare with guys hammering up drywall, wax being sprayed etc.
10-minutes are spent fawning over the waxworks in the movie. It's also here that the producers try to convince you that the film is based on the original.
There's also a gag-reel, it's quite funny as there's not actually many gags, which means that the laughs aren't forthcoming either.
Jennifer Killed is an alternate opening to the movie, someone dies, she's called Jennifer. She has no relation to anything in the movie and therefore was removed after several thousand dollars had been spent shooting it.
Joel Silver pops up for a minute or so to try and sell you the movie. The thing is you'll have already bought or rented the movie to see this, therefore it's pointless.
The trailer backs up the rear and tells you that House of Wax is indeed a standard slasher romp.
House of Wax is not a total waste of time, but it's not a great movie. It just feels like people going through the motions. The frustrating thing is that everything Dark Castle has made so far had the potential to be cool but so far there appears to be little effort to make things cool.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 1981 - Horror - Director: Rick Rosenthal - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Lance Guest, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer, Dana Carvey
Thanks for the advice we were deciding whether to watch this film, but I hated Gothika it was ridiculous and this film sounds ridiculous too. Many thanks and a great review.
lisa2062 09.02.2006 18:02
You have convined me not to buy it, however may catch it on Sky to see what all the fuss was about!
darkangelwing 30.12.2005 19:40
Good review, hope ya had a merry christmas, and have a lovely new year(-:
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![House Of Wax [DVD] [2005]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78492849.jpg "House Of Wax [DVD] [2005]")
Oct 15th, 2005
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