House of wax (House Of Wax [2005] (DVD))

Member Name: linzeelou

Product:	House Of Wax [2005] (DVD)
Date:	22/07/09 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Chad Michael Murray...as always in his films

Disadvantages: A bit silly

House of wax was released in May 2005 by Warner Bros. Pictures. It's a horror film, loosely based on the 1953 film of the same name which is also a remake of a 1933 film, Mystery of the wax museum. This was Paris Hilton's debut movie and one slogan from the advertising campaign was 'See Paris Hilton die'. Good enough way to sell a movie I think. I know a lot of people that want that to happen. It has a run time of 113 minutes and is rated a 15 because of the gore.

The film starts off in 1974 and we see a woman making masks from boiling wax while watching over her son having breakfast. He's well behaved and sits there quietly. The woman's husband brings in the other child who is having a major tantrum and they fight to get him strapped into a high chair, because he is fighting and screaming so much. The mother gets really angry and asks why he cant be more like his well behaved brother and slaps him across the face although we never get to see either of their faces.

Now into the present. A group of 6 teenagers, Carly, Wade, Paige, Blake, Nick and Dalton, are on their way to a football game in Louisiana. The traffic on the way is crazy so Blake finds them a shortcut down a rural highway to try and make it to the game in time but it ends up being blocked off so they have to take a detour. The group decide to camp out in a field for the night but have a visitor who refuses to leave until Nick throws a beer bottle at the strangers car, making them leave.

When they wake up in the morning, Wade finds that he car has been vandalised and Dalton's camcorder is missing. Carly and Paige go for a wander around and discover a landfill full of road kill and see's a man throwing another deer onto the pile. The man offers to drive them to the nearest town so they can get a new fan belt, so Carly and Wade go with him. The rest of the gang decide to stay where they are until the car can be fixed. Once Carly and Wade get to the town, Ambrose, they realise something isn't right when the only place that has any people, is the church. That's when the things start going badly for our gang and they realise the town isn't what it seems at all.

Cast
Nick - Chad Michael Murray
Paige - Paris Hilton
Dalton - Jon Abrahams
Carly - Elisha Cuthbert
Wade - Jared Padalecki
Blake - Robert Ri'chard

Although this film got really mixed reviews, I quite liked it. I love the cheesy slasher films and this one was a little bit different than most. I can't say that it's original though because it is based on other films but I liked the idea of it, as silly as it was. The film is well known because of Paris Hilton, but I don't think she was even nearly as bad as everyone thought she would be. Her role was quite small and she didn't feature too much which is probably a good thing, maybe I would have thought worse of her if I had to watch her for longer. At least the film made some money because of her being killed though. I thought that part was quite funny.

Chad Michael Murray was great as always. If you have read my other reviews then you'll know I have quite a soft spot for him because he normally plays the nice guy. In House of wax he was quite the trouble maker and a bit cheeky which is a completely different role for him to play but I thought he did it very well. He doesn't really start out as a main character but he comes into the story more towards the end and really gets into his role then. Although a lot of people saw this film because of Paris Hilton, I'm sure a lot of girls, myself included, watched it because of him.

Elisha Cuthbert was really the main character. I'd only seen her previously in The Girl Next Door but I quite liked her in that. I wasn't really sure if she could pull off a horror, on the basis of watching the other film but I thought she was great. I think the audience will connect with her easily and for me, part of the reason that I liked the film, was because of her.

Ok, so the plot is a little bit silly, maybe very silly to some people, but aren't most slasher films like that now? The plot is probably the only main thing that I can be negative about. It was fairly predictable once it got into the story but just before we get to the main part, I thought everyone was just going to get killed in the woods by the crazy man. At least there was something that I didn't guess straight away in this film.

There is a lot of blood and gore throughout which is what I loved about it. Anything that can make me cringe gets a thumbs up from me. The way some of the people get killed are very creative and the effects were fantastic. I hate to see horror films where you can tell what make up was put where etc, at least most of the gore in this film looked kind of real. Whereas a lot of slasher films aim for a younger audience, House of wax didn't make this mistake. It's very much a film for late teens at the youngest. I'm glad the film is aimed at an older audience because it meant that they could add more gore and thrills than in a normal slasher film.

Overall, I think if you don't take this film too seriously, it isn't anywhere near as bad as you think it will be.

Summary: Not as bad as everyone made out