House of Wax Movie Review

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Yet another of many classic horror movies being remade lately. Some have succeed, some have failed, and some have come out just ok, and if they all have something in common, is that the actors are always young and hot, and I have to admit that as a young person who watches TV a lot, that is really important to me, the cast. House of Wax follows those rules (and every other horror movie rule too) and even though having Paris Hilton in her first big role in a movie screams "this is gonna suck!", it doesn't, and I'm going to leave Miss Hilton for later cause she rules here, and the movie is freaking great too.

A group of college students are on a road trip on their way to a football game when they have car trouble, so they need to stop by the closest town to find a way to fix it. The town is of course run by a group of crazy people who wants to kill them.

Yes, it's a slasher movie, and yes, it sounds just like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only this time the crazy people are a group of brothers who like to wax things, including people, and have created a museum called the House of Wax that is all made of wax, except the statues of the people inside, that look so real because as the trailer tells us, they're real people covered by wax.

Forgive me for having not seen the original once again, and so I can't compare them, but instead I'll compare it to the aforementioned TCM remake, just because they both have the same vibe. Also comparable are the movies' atmospheres, which are both very well done with TCM's coming on top by just a little bit. Which one is better, TCM, no doubt in my mind, but there's a lot to love about House of Wax, and that's its characters.

Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray are the leads, playing twin brothers Carly and Nick. Jared Padalecki plays Carly's boyfriend Wade, with Jon Abrahams playing Nick's friend Dalton. Robert Ri'chard and Paris Hilton are Blake and Paige, who's best friends with Carly.
Carly and Nick are on screen most of the movie's time, almost an %80 I'd say, with the rest of the characters having little to do though necessary stuff.

Elisha and Chad are really great in the movie, as is Brian Van Holt who plays the bad guys. And then Paris Hilton, she of The Simple Life and of One Night in Paris, her other great performance in a movie, and yes, note I said 'other' there.

Is she a great actress? Not because of this movie, she has little to act but her performance is effective and sure to please everybody who loves her and even more those who hate her. And no, she doesn't get naked here, no need for that since any person in the world with internet access has already seen her in the nude, but she's in her underwear most of the time (striptease included) so that's good. But she doesn't rule here because of that, she rules for having the guts to take this role and I'm going to explain why.

It's her first big role and she dies in the movie, of course she does. I think "I die in this movie" were the first words she said on MTV's Movie Life, a behind the scenes series about the filming of House of Wax. And that's perfect, because we want her to die, and she has a great death scene by the way that will have the entire theatre cheering. But more props goes to her because this Robert Ri'chard guy is a black guy, and though that shouldn't be a problem at all, I'm sure not every actor or actress would take a role that has them in a relationship with a black person, but like it should be she didn't care at all and she took the part. Also props for letting the filmmakers use her real life and make a joke out of it in the movie. One of the characters has a camcorder in the movie, and Paris has more than one scene being on camera, even with the nightvision like the first shows of her private movie. And it's funny, and you have to give it to her for allowing that kind of stuff that is only funny because it is done to her. Also, her character is not stupid, knows how to hide, and she's the only supporting character who actually gets to hurt the bad guy a little bit even though she ends up not surviving. So good for Paris.

Director Jaume Serra has made a really great job making the movie very atmospheric, gory, and scary (fingers being cut are always welcome), and the production team has made a really good job with the wax stuff, which made the movie feel real because the everything was actually made of real wax. Add the great cast and once again you have a horror movie that would be an instant classic if it weren't a remake of a classic, but we'll see in 30 years which movies comes out on top as the classic after Paris wins an Oscar. Ok, that last line came out a little bit crazy, but not what is before that, because the movie is really great.

Review by Hakeem