One of my new favorite horror Films - House of Wax

[Quorthon]

admin said:

Quorth, I guess if you want to compare Wax to Romero's films then yes - it's "light on gore"; but, nevertheless, it seems at least violent for today's standards.

Which is part of a larger problem--Mainstream horror movies are way too soft! The momentary gore in House of Wax wouldn't count for anything compared to most "real" slashers or horror films. Granted, the first Friday the 13th was a little light on the gore as well, but through the stronger films in the series, HoW couldn't hold a candle to it.

[Bartwald]

drlenera said:

I also thought it was gory for a commercial slasher movie,and just as gory as any of the Friday the 13ths.

I think I can agree with the above. Sure I only ever saw the edited versions of the films (I mean - the most widely known versions), but I don't think they beat House Of Wax in the gore department. If we count the gore moments in minutes, like Quorth did with House Of Wax, I'm pretty sure we'll get precious several minutes of it in each Friday film, too. And House Of Wax seems more violent to me because all its acts of violence are somehow more realistic than those in Fridays.

[slayrrr666]

Q earlier had said that one of the site's biggest horror fiends finally saw it, time for the other one to put his two cents in:

“House of Wax” wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.

**SPOILERS**

Driving to a concert, Carly Jones, (Elisha Cuthbert) her brother Nick, (Chad Michael Murray) and their friends Paige, (Paris Hilton) Wade, (Jared Padalecki) Dalton, (Jon Abrahams) abd Blake, (Robert Ri’chard) stop off along the way to a football game. When the car gets broken down and needs repair, several leave to a nearby town for help. They stumble upon a wax museum, but before they acquire the necessary parts for their car, they are attacked by a crazed psycho who begins collecting the bodies of the friends. As more of the group gets picked off, the remaining members discover the terrible secret about the town and struggle to make it out alive.

The Good News: For all the remake fuss, this one wasn’t that bad. The most impressive part of this was that the set design was stunning. Everything was said to have been made out of wax, and it actually looks like it. The walls, floors, furniture, and everything else found in the wax museum was made out of wax, which results in one of the most unsettling and unnerving sets ever made. It is played to it’s effective best during the opening walk-through, where the unknowing of it makes for some great atmosphere. There are plenty of other creepy moments during this, including the usual mirror gag jump that actually works, but the brilliant design of the museum is the best part. Close to that is the spectacular conclusion, where the final battle between the good and evil forces is played out inside the burning museum. It’s a grand piece of spectacle, with the lots of brutal fighting amongst a fire burning the museum down. It’s long and accurate in it’s depiction of what goes down, making it an action-packed set-piece that ends the film with a big bang. It was also more brutal in dealing with the characters than what was to be expected, as there’s a lot more torture in here than what would be expected. The same character is thrown against a wall of tools and gets tied up, their lips glued shut and more, which is just one character. This film treats them brutally, with the kills being just as brutal. There’s a tendon slicing with scissors, a brutal decapitation with garden shears that was actually filmed like it was just an impaling before it zooms out to show it’s not, and a vicious pole through the head that demands to be repeated, only for features that won’t be repeated here. The fact that they also show the construction of the wax sculptures being shown adds to the brutality on display. The chase scenes are nicely handled and actually demonstrate that there was some suspense present in the film. The movie theater chase was the best, utilizing the surrounding area well into the chase and giving some potential for the ruse to work or fail. One of the better sequences in a pretty good film.

The Bad News: As much as there was right about it, there’s enough wrong with it. The biggest one is the pacing. It’s really off. There didn’t need to be almost an hour of exposition before the slashing began. A lot of that could’ve been easily trimmed and taken out. It really has lots of scenes of just wandering around looking for nothing, and just gets us bored and antsy as to when it’s going to get going. Admitted, it does get going and it’s great when it does, but the journey to get there is a long one. Also, even though it leads to positive in some great chases, the characters here perform some very monumentally dumb moves that no one should ever do in a horror film. Splitting up, investigating dark areas, going off on tangents when escaping would be better suited and in general really dumb actions are taken, and that can be taken the wrong way. With these two main issues aside, it would still have to contend with a slew of plot holes and other easily spotted mistakes which are quite crucial and won’t be given away, so it’s not a flawless film but there certainly several things wrong with it.

The Final Verdict: I wasn’t expecting to like it as much a as I did, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have it’s problems. Not up to the classic original, but still very worthwhile and a decent update. There’s enough good to recommend giving it a shot at the very least.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and brie scenes with dead animals

[Bartwald]

Oh yes - the almost-an-hour of exposition bothered me, too. But still - it's a fun horror film, better than I would expect.

[slayrrr666]

I kinda liked it, but that beginning kinda kills it at times.

Plus, I never mentioned it, but that only four bodies in here never sat well either. Needed to be bumped way up. If they had shown some of the town's people getting knocked off along the way as they tried to help them out would've help.

But I still would say that it's placed into the decent category among the remakes recently.