A DVD REVIEW: HOUSE OF WAX (2005, Warner Bros./Dark Castle)

[DJ Scotty]

"HOT, SEXY, DELICIOUSLY CREEPY HORROR."


Originally hailing from the region, I put little stock, incredibly, in anything the editors and writers from The Long Island Press have to say -- especially and undoubtedly when it comes to anything cinema-oriented. The only possible explanation as to what they are referring to in the above quoted statement with regard to this remake of the Vincent Price chiller must be the appearance of Paris Hilton in this film -- which I have to admit, was pretty sexy to gawk at even for the brief "getting somewhat naked" scene she is in. I can distinctly remember wanting to see this when it first arrived theatrically if only to sample Hilton's acting "abilities" (which were proven, quite understandably, to be a downright joke in this) and when I saw her name splashed on the casting materials for this, I just absolutely knew it was going to be yet another overtly-clichéd, made-for-the-MTV-audience, closeups-of-hot-girls-in-their-tank-tops-but-not-much-else-going-on bore fest right along the lines, almost scene for scene and act for act, of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, Cabin Fever, Wrong Turn and Jeepers Creepers. Another group of college-aged morons on yet another trip that gets them lost and in trouble with yet another bunch of inbred maniacs that seem to crave making living nightmares out of young people's lives. What a different approach this is to the Vincent Price original; I was able to withstand the remake of William Castle's House on Haunted Hill, in which the original starred the legendary Price -- but this.....this was...well....intolerable to me. At least the remake of House on Haunted Hill had saving graces like the over-the-top performance by Geoffrey Rush and the comedic relief of Chris Kattan; here, aside from Hilton's name, we have a slew of nobodies -- a cast that seems to have fallen out of the WB network's cradle of "hip, new-generation actors" (chuckle, excuse me) and into this realm of modern-day horror cinema. I was, admittedly, curious to at least rent this and finally got around to it last night -- if, again, only to see Ms. Hilton and her "acting debut" in a "major motion picture."

 

[DJ Scotty]

Warner had once again teamed up with Dark Castle Productions (as they did for William Malone's remake of House on Haunted Hill and later for the campy Ghost Ship) along with producing team Joel Silver and Robert Zmeckis to remake the Vincent Price legend of the same name. As with most other remakes seething from the pits of Hollywood today, this just doesn't work nearly as efficiently as the original. So, chuck another one into the vat of failed remake attempts which is already boiling with the likes of The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Haunting....aside from the aforementioned no-name-cast problem, we have a script that seems literally lifted from the formula of all these attract-teenage-populations-to-the-theater projects that end up falling on their faces anyway, such as the also aforementioned Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever, Jeepers Creepers...in other words, a film you'll be seeing reshown every night in a row on cable in just a few short months.

It's amazing -- simply amazing -- just how overtly clichéd this script -- and resulting film -- really is; I was expecting something better, to be honest. Even if it was just a little better. We have the prerequisite hot chicks with the super-tight bodies and perfectly curved chests that keep getting close-ups in the camera lens (a la Jessica Beil in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake) although Paris Hilton really has no tits to speak of, at least to me, to be frank. Then, we have the testosterone-crazed, show-off-because-I'm-too-young-to-know-any-better, moronic male "leads" playing the boyfriends and friends in this group....then, we have, of course, the token African American male that looks like he's 12 years old in his Cadillac Escalade SUV playing with the GPS navigation system and bopping his head to gangster rap music while his hot white chick girlfriend (Hilton) strips and makes love to him any chance she gets.....what kind of a world do these kids live in? Is there a membership fee? Then, of course, we have the backdrop of a creepy little town with toothless, filthy perverts giving our college-aged idiots a ride in a broken down tow truck (as if these kids shouldn't know by now these are not ideal situations to be hanging out in) which is going to lead to some kind of abduction by more creepy family members in the town (again, see Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever, Texas Chainsaw remake). Jesus. I was rolling my eyes within 15 minutes of watching this...maybe less.

The pace that's set here for House of Wax borders on lethargic and sleep-inducing -- there's pretty much no action all the way through the first hour of this picture if you can believe that. That's not the way to pace a modern horror film. The plot is systematic, done before and downright redundantly boring at this point, making the original with the late great Vincent Price shine even brighter in retrospect: we have a group (big surprise) of downright moronic, sex-crazed college-aged kids who are on their way to a football game somewhere in Florida (or perhaps it is somewhere in Louisiana, as hinted at in one scene), and to the wanna-be-gangster-in-the-making African American boyfriend of Paris Hilton's character, driving his $80,000 Escalade EXT, going to this game is life and death. Along with the sexy-looking Hilton (who's acting is just downright atrocious, what with her expressions never changing and most of her screen time spent babbling on her cell phone to her other friend who came with them on the trip as she tries to act very "cool" and even sometimes gangster-like thanks to her better half) joining this group is Hilton's aforementioned big-chested pretty friend, her boyfriend and brother (who is a Justin Timberlake clone, no kidding) and one of their friends (the kid who played Ben Stiller's fiancé’s little brother in Meet The Parents; an overly-clichéd weird, off-the-wall, drug-and-drinking-hooked character). All in all, aside from Hilton, a big group of nobodies.

On the way to the game, the group gets sidetracked in the swamps and back woods somewhere (have we seen this somewhere before?) and they camp out in this remote area, hoping to get up the next day and make the game. That night, as they sit around a fire and get drunk (have we seen this somewhere before?), an old beat-up truck arrives at the site and blares its headlights at the kids, freaking them out. Instead of picking themselves up and getting the hell out of there (as a normal person would do...then again, a normally-functioning human being wouldn't have been on this trip with these idiots or stopped at this isolated swamp area to begin with), the drunken boys yell at the unseen driver of the truck and throw beer bottles at his headlights. The truck pulls away and drives off, but we know that's not the last we're gonna see of this freak driving it.

The next day, one of the boys realizes his fan belt has been cut under the hood of his car, rendering the vehicle undrivable. Paris Hilton's ridiculously-gangster boyfriend, still desperate to get to the football game and thinking only of himself and his "prized white piece of ***" (again, the clichés here are utterly annoying and border on intelligence-insulting), drives to the game with Hilton and the other friends as the kid who owns the muscle car stays with his girlfriend (Hilton's friend) to try and find a gas station to fix his car, perhaps in the closest town. They run into a strange, inbred-appearing, yellow-toothed, filthy truck driver (have we seen this someplace before?) who offers them a ride to the nearest town just through the swamps -- as they approach some rocks in a brook, the weirdo gets out and asks the kid to help him switch his truck into Four Wheel Drive mode. Sensing this creep's a freak, the kid and his chick take off by foot to the nearby town, which seems to be oddly desolate and houses a "House of Wax" -- an attraction which seems out of place for this tiny, one-horse town. Still searching for a gas station to get his fan belt, the kid and his girl make their way into a church, where a funeral seems to be going on -- a creepy guy dressed all in black, who seems to be "running" the funeral, has some words with the kids outside about breaking into the funeral and interrupting it just so they can get their belt for their car; already, we sense something is very wrong with this town. The creep ends up being the guy who runs the gas station in town, and after apologizing to the kids for the way he spoke to them, offers to take them up to his house because that's where he has the right sized belt for the kid's car. Instead of refusing to go, of course, our moronic college kids get in the guy's truck with him and go up to his house -- at this point, the film is already running a good amount of time and yet it by no means even "feels" like a creepy wax museum horror picture; we don’t even know what to make of it yet except to know that some really stupid college-aged kids are about to come face to face with some torturous reality (can anyone say Texas Chainsaw Massacre?).

But before they get a ride to the gas station owner's house, the kid and his girl make their way over to this House of Wax -- and it literally is a house made of wax....the whole thing. The sign on the front says CLOSED, but the door creaks open and the two of them go in there. Inside, they find sculptures and statues made of wax, and entire structure details made of the stuff too -- such as a winding staircase. The girl notices that many items in this "museum" have the name "Vincent" on it; a sub-plot splinters in which we learn that two Siamese Twins were separated after birth, one of them being horribly disfigured from the procedure, his name being Vincent. It seems this "Vincent," who now looks like Michael Jackson with his white-waxed face and long black hair, has been "running" this House of Wax by luring people in from the road with signs of a "House of Wax" attraction, and then turning them into literal wax figures by pouring molten layers of the stuff over the people while they are still alive (if this all smacks of those inbred-lures-college-kids-in exploitations such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever or even Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses, don't worry -- you wont be the only one thinking that).

 

[DJ Scotty]

Once leaving the House of Wax and getting the ride to the gas station owner's house, the boy gets out with the weirdo to get his fan belt he needs while his chick stays in the truck alone -- is this smart? I just needed to ask. Of course, time passes and the boyfriend doesn't return -- as he is being made into a wax figure by "Vincent" in the House of Wax. The scene is pretty gruesome, as we watch his facial hair being removed for the "waxing" procedure in a quite painful fashion -- much like the sequence in the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre where the boyfriend in that one gets his leg chopped off by the saw and is then hung by a meat hook while salt or something is rammed into his missing leg stump and he cries in agony -- this scene here is very similar. In the meantime, Hilton and her idiot friends who went to the football game are sitting in so much horrendous traffic, they decide to turn around and not go to the game. Returning to the original camp site, where they said they would meet the couple who went into the town to get the fan belt, they see they have not returned there as of yet. Now, of course, because there's just so much free time, Hilton does a strip tease for her gangster boyfriend in their sleeping tent in perhaps the most provocative scene in the picture. She really does have one smokin' body -- Jesus H. Christ.....but to me, Paris will always have "pig" written all over her and I'll simply never respect her, no matter how smokin' hot she may be: the scene is pretty fiery though; she wiggles that tight body out of her jogging suit to reveal a passion-red bra and ***-hugging panties and her body really is kicking. Unfortunately, the "brotha" doesn't get any *** from Hilton, as she is trying to tell him about her possibly pregnancy before they bang, and he is distracted by a cell phone message Hilton's friend left on his phone regarding the strange town they are in, and that they may have run into the freak who's headlight they shot out the other night.

Ultimately, once one of the guys is made into a wax figure and put on display at the "museum," his girlfriend is tied up by the psycho running the gas station who is obviously "in" on this operation with "Vincent" -- could this be Vincent's brother, whom he was separated from at birth? From here, our kids die (amazingly, right), and I actually cheered when Hilton got a pipe rammed into her head and driven right through the entire skull, impaling her on it. The film is actually quite gory, but some of the special effects used look campy and fake -- like during this Hilton death scene. You can clearly see it is a dummy-double of Hilton lying there with the pipe through its head; they should have made this look a bit more authentic. Once Hilton, her boyfriend and the other friend who is along for the ride (the kid who played Ben Stiller's fiancé’s brother in Meet The Parents) are all killed off, the film comes down to the tied-up chick below the gas station and her brother (the Justin Timberlake look alike) still remaining. The brother arrives at the gas station just in time to realize his sister is trapped below by this freak, with whom he gets into a punching match with for almost the remainder of the picture. He ends up being able to free his sister, but she has already lost a fingertip, as the psycho from the station has cut it off with a pliers.

 

[DJ Scotty]

The film concludes in the actual House of Wax, where "Vincent," this psycho from the gas station, the sister and brother are in a final battle -- the weirdo and Vincent trying to abduct the kids so they can also be added to the wax museum collection alongside all the other statues on display there (it is also discovered by the sister and brother that every "person" that is in this town -- or at least "appear" to be people -- are actually transformed wax figures...and they even find the sister's boyfriend in the museum as a wax figure to their horror). The brother and sister end up escaping as the House of Wax burns to the ground in melting pools of the material -- a homage to the original, I suppose. In a weird twist at the very end, the police that arrive on the scene and discover that these brothers have been luring people in to make them into wax figures for years are suddenly informed that the two brothers -- Vincent and the freak from the gas station -- were not the only two sons from this bizarre family -- there was indeed a third son. We discover who this is as the camera pans out of the town in the final scene...the filthy weirdo driving the truck from earlier in the film who wanted to drive the kids into the town! Is there going to be a sequel to this remake? G-d, I hope not....and better yet, has that ever been done before?

In the end, the remake of House of Wax proves yet again that this was not only utterly unnecessary, but that without proper execution, these projects just fall flat on their faces at the end of the day. With a paper-thin script, lack of any acting abilities here, clichéd modern horror overtones and a downright crawling opening pace, I am glad I simply rented this and did not blind-buy; I can only recommend it, in fact, as a rental, not a purchase. But that's gonna be your call. Yes, Paris Hilton is extremely delightful to look at in this when she's taking her clothes off -- but that's about it; her acting has you reaching for your shotgun in order to shoot the TV screen and the ridiculous, been-there-done-that methods of utilizing the African American "homie" with his chromed-out Cadillac Escalade and his hot-*** white girlfriend just got nauseatingly tiring. You can't help but cheer and get excited when these characters meet their demise. I know I did when Hilton got the pipe through her head; I thought it was great...

But there's just no "meat" here and combined with the awful pacing set by director Jaume Collet-Serra, this was a big disappointment. I cannot, again, recommend a purchase.

Warner Brothers, again in conjunction with Dark Castle, has made House of Wax available in a single-disc, widescreen edition for rental duties; there is a more lavish version of the title available for purchase which includes a pretty neat outer slipcover with raised relief dripping wax renditions for the cover artwork, but that wasn't available for the rental version. This is the typical, getting-cheap Warner execution on DVD as they drop their awful snapper case packages, but cut corners elsewhere by offering keepcases with no chapter inserts, information, nothing -- just an empty box with the DVD inside. Adding insult to injury, we're given a mediocre video and audio transfer here as well, along the lines of their recent releases like Constantine and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist.

VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS: HOW DOES THE DISC LOOK?
"WIDESCREEN VERSION PRESENTED IN A 'MATTED' WIDESCREEN FORMAT PRESERVING THE ASPECT RATIO OF ITS ORIGINAL THEATRICAL EXHIBITION, ENHANCED FOR WIDESCREEN TVs; DUAL LAYER FORMAT"

Warner-speak for a DVD transfer other than 2:35:1; on my 55" Mitsubishi, there was no letterboxing exhibited, as there never is with these "matted" Warner transfers, and the image filled my screen completely. There's really nothing to say about this print; it's neither bad nor good, to be honest. It just was. I've seen better, and I've seen worse, and this is one of those times when scrutinizing a Warner Brothers transfer you just don't know what to make of -- I would say it was an average effort, but nothing exhibited that really jumped off the screen color- or image-wise. This was probably due to director preferences regarding the style and look for the picture. This won't be something you're going to wow your neighbors with when you get that 90" widescreen display -- save that for perhaps Finding Nemo.

AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS: HOW DOES THE DISC SOUND?
ENGLISH, FRENCH & SPANISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1; SUBTITLES IN ENGLISH, FRENCH & SPANISH (FEATURE FILM ONLY)

Like so many other Warner DVD releases with "plain old" Dolby Digital 5.1 surround tracks, this one lacked much excitement, and I am beginning to expect that every time I pop in a Warner-branded title with Dolby-only mixes affixed to it. The mix does not really even heat up until just about the final scene, where the House of Wax is coming apart, and that's where distinct, discrete use of the surround channels are utilized, as the sounds of flames licking around the listener and the structure collapsing creates a somewhat realistic effect. Up until that point -- and I’m not exaggerating here -- nothing is really going on during this Dolby 5.1 affair....the mix is nowhere near engaging enough to be memorable, with just about any and all information coming from the center position primarily -- very little, in fact, bleeding into the main fronts. I actually questioned a couple of times in the beginning of the presentation if I was running the right track through my system, or if this WAS in fact a Dolby 5.1 surround track because it was so uninvolving in the beginning. Dialogue, again, is mixed on the hushed side, making the differences between action sequences and speech scenes very noticeable; this is a problem that still does not seem to have been addressed with Warner's home video sound engineers. It was clearly heard on Constantine. It's there on House on Haunted Hill. It's also there on Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. And it makes its way onto House of Wax. LFE is present and strong at times, especially for an overall unengaging surround mix. But the fact that the dialogue is mixed so low and that the track doesn’t heat up until almost the end makes this a Dolby Digital mix I simply cannot give a thumbs-up to.

Extras on the single disc package included:

-B Roll and Bloopers Video Cast Commentary
-From Location: Joel Silver Reveals House of Wax
-Wax On: The Design of House of Wax
-The House Built on Wax: The Visual Effects of House of Wax
-Alternate Open: Jennifer Killed
-Gag Reel
-Theatrical Trailer

Also, something I did not mention in the review; there is an opening scene regarding a "years ago" flashback sequence with a child being put into a high-chair by an abusive father (and then the film fast-forwards to "Present Day") and this has some tie in with the "Vincent"/House of Wax thing, but it was a head-scratcher to me; if you figure it out, all the best.

Thank you for reading, friends.