Friday, October 15, 2021

31 Days, 31 Horror Reviews Day 15: House of Wax

2005.

Nobody told me that House of Wax kicks ass. I’m pretty upset with all of you. Were you trying to keep this a secret from me? Well, the secret's out. Director Jaume Collet-Serra's movie slaps hard, we need to tell the world.

I did not see House of Wax in 2005 for the same reason most people did not see it: Paris Hilton. House of Wax is a great horror movie with a lot of cool ideas and creative kills. But people only think of this movie as just being “oh yeah, that shitty slasher with Paris Hilton in it”. Hilton was all over House of Wax’s marketing, and yeah, stunt-casting a reality star socialite is not a good sign. Probably she did the movie more harm than good, which is a shame. Paris Hilton is not bad in House of Wax, and House of Wax is not bad either.

The Paris Hilton thing probably needs some reexamining. In 2005, she was one of the most famous people on Earth. She was a massive celebrity with a hit TV show, a record deal, a best-selling book, she had catchphrases, she was a sexual and fashion icon. Whatever you can do, she did it. Also, like many women in the public eye, you were supposed to hate Paris Hilton’s guts. Part of her appeal was being this wrestler heel character who had all the money and all the fame, and we were told without much talent. “She’s just famous for being famous”, even I said that shit at the time. 

In House of Wax, Paris Hilton is perfectly competent as an actress whose job is to scream and get a spear thrown through her head. Any backlash seems pointlessly petty and sexist. Plus, regardless of your thoughts about her class status and whatever you think of her sex tape, she was doing something right.

There are countless cases of women in the public eye who got much worse: Anna Nicole Smith, Britany Spears, even Hilton’s co-star, Nicole Richie. I’m glad Paris Hilton seems to have survived all this mostly intact. We led us to so instinctually despise a skinny blonde woman just because she was on magazines. What the fuck were we doing?

Anyway, House of Wax is a movie about a pair of redneck brothers that kidnap college students and torture them by pouring hot wax on their skin, turning them into living mannequins of themselves. All this is considerably less gross and exploitative than the tabloid environment of the time.

The other big issue House of Wax has to overcome is the fact it is a remake. In the early 2000s, there was a goddamned flood of horror remakes, mostly forgettable ones. At some point we started remaking every notable scary movie of the last forty years. Most of those remakes are either bad or very forgettable, or such as the remake of The Fog also from 2005, they were very bad and forgettable.

House of Wax actually has a better pedigree than the plague of Miramax or Platinum Dunes remakes of this era. It’s a Dark Castle Entertainment joint, a label that took inspiration from old William Castle and Vincent Price horror movies. These are "remakes" in mostly name-only, adding a lot more gore and edge to slower, talkier Old Hollywood pictures. Dark Castle made the 1999 House on Haunted Hill, the 2001 Thir13en Ghosts, and the 2002 Ghost Ship, which all are fantastic movies. (I regret not covering more of them on this series, actually.) I like these films better than their black and white originals because I am the most basic of the bitches.

This new House of Wax is a typical Texas Chainsaw Massacre plot of college kids driving out into the scary forgotten realm of poor people, and then getting murdered one by one. It is a kind of double-exploitation, where both the “White trash” and the horny kids are equally despised by the script. This is a movie that thinks the college kids are hopelessly vain because they have fancy cars with some SciFi technology called "GPS". The evil poor people are the usual collection of creepy skinny guy, handsome guy that almost passes for normal, and of course, the giant psycho without a face. The villains are utterly ruthless, snipping off fingers and gluing lips shut. Then there are the much more horrible acts involving wax.

Most of the cast of victims are TV actors: Chad Michael Murray, Jared Padalecki, Elisha Cuthbert, Robert Ri'chard, Paris Hilton of course, and Jon Abrahams. There are few faces you will not recognize in some way. After all, we have two alumni of Gilmore Girls and one from Cousin Skeeter. The evil killer wax brothers, Bo and Vincent are both played by Brian Van Holt. This is a great cast. Elisha Cuthbert is the lead, and I think she's killing it in this movie.

What also elevates House of Wax is a commitment to being intense and creative. The movie opens on child-versions of Bo and Vincent being abused by their parents in high-chairs. It’s creepy and awful scene, with clever shots that never show the actors' faces, and commits to an edge. We then cut to screaming contemporary rock music and our middle-class victims all acting slutty. Eventually we do get back to House of Wax's more surreal side. 

Most of the movie is set in the lost town of Ambrose, a mostly abandoned place full of striking art deco buildings. The kids think they see people around, only to discover every person is just a wax sculpture prop. Then there is the titular House of Wax, a museum building made entirely out of wax, floors and walls and all.

I will say the wax premise is often underused. Only one member of the cast actually dies from wax in some way. This is gnarly as shit when his friends find him, still alive, and try to peal the wax coating off, only to pull off his face too. That guy ends up sitting there in that spot for the rest of the movie too, maybe still alive the entire time. That is deeply fucked and I love it. The rest of the deaths are typical slasher shit. Decapitation, stabbing through the neck, etc. Paris Hilton does get impaled, which is more fun than most kills.

It is not until the fantastic climax where the survivors fight off Bo and Vincent in the melting House of Wax, that the concept really shines through. Gotta love the gloopy wet effects of people trying to climb stairs as their feet sink into the steps. Or wax bodies melting off to reveal the corpses beneath.

House of Wax is still a stupid slasher movie, but much better than you’d expect. None of the heroes' backstories matter. And the villains' backstory is gross for grossness’s own sake. But I think this rules. It’s thrilling, it’s dark, it’s got a banger of a finale. People looked at me weird when I told them I was going to watch this, and I stand by the choice. House of Wax is great.

Though scariest part of House of Wax? $1.19 a gallon for gas. Holy shit.

Next time we travel to 2006, the year of Pluto getting kicked out of the planet club, the Nintendo Wii teaching us all the wonders of waggle gameplay, and our next movie, Cinderella. (And no, not that one.)

No comments:

Post a Comment