A bunch of twentysomething teen funsters are waylaid on their way to the big sporting teams event when they have vehicular malfunction. They discover a rather strange small town and its only attraction, a wax museum. Pretty soon, they’re almost all dead! Would you like to know more about these characters? Very well. Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) has dreams of moving to The Big Apple, but her hunky BF Wade (Jared Padalecki) wants her to stay in their little garbage town. Carly’s best friend is Paris Hilton, but more consequentially, her twin brother Nick (Chad Michael Murray) is the local bad boy who’s just waiting for a chance at redemption so that he can stop being a real dickbagel. Bless him!
Before Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra got saddled with Liam Neeson and long before his recent big budget Hollywood comeback, his directorial debut, House of Wax (pacing misstep aside), is an old school-style slasher full of jaw-dropping grotesquery, genuine suspense, and mesmerizing production design. The nu-metal bits of the soundtrack in the form of Disturbed and Marilyn Manson clash hilariously with the classic new wave/goth of Joy Division but that’s the mid-2000s for you. It was one of the great eras of non-style stylishness that was dated the day it hit the streets. But 2005 was a pretty damn decent year for horror (the year of Hostel, The Descent, and Wolf Creek) and House of Wax really stands out in spite of its flaws.
I’ve always enjoyed this remake of the classic 1953 Vincent Price 3-D spectacle, but there’s a big chunk of the movie that didn’t work in 2005 and doesn’t work now: the partying sequence. This film clocks in at 113 minutes and the viewer does not have time for any abysmal campfire tomfoolery, and yet it’s all here. What saves House of Wax is that the setpieces and the finale are so gosh darn badass that your brain forgets the meandering of the unnecessary timewasting taken to give hornballs a chance to see Hilton in her panties (which had absolutely never happened before in any form of media at the time).
New to this edition of House of Wax is its “2K scan of the interpositive”, which sounds like a way to solve or cause an existential crisis. Also new is a recent interview with Paris Hilton, who is sunny and cheerful while reminiscing about working on the film. But she’s still one of the weirdest people on the planet. There’s an interview with Robert Ri’chard, who played Hilton’s love interest in the movie and another with composer John Ottman, who talks about composing for a horror film and making a big sound with a small amount of money. And lastly, we get to hear from effects artist Jason Baird, who has a lot to share about his work on House of Wax. Also, there are a ton of extras from the previous edition of House of Wax tacked onto this Blu, including a gag reel which reveals Elisha Cuthbert’s propensity for swearing like a sailor in the outtakes.