Table of Contents
The Land Before Streaming
I want you to imagine a world that no longer exists. One in which portals to different dimensions were lined up neatly on metal racks for you to pick up and view. These small gateways were dressed in stunning and sometimes frightening pieces of art that shared a glimpse into the unknown universe inside. This was the place I found myself with my dear friend Cody on a Friday night in 2005 when we asked his mom to politely rent us House of Wax. She smiled and asked what kind of candy we wanted. There’s no sense in renting a movie from Blockbuster if you aren’t going to leave with the proper snacks.
If we couldn’t sneak into the theater to see the new and gruesome horror pictures, the next best option was to dim the lights in Cody’s basement and play them on his VHS or DVD player. I always thought there was something special about watching a horror movie underground. It’s where we would first watch The Descent several years later. On this night, we were jazzed to score a copy of another horror remake made just for us. And boy, was this film ever made for the 13-year-old kids who rented it from Blockbuster.
Welcome to the next chapter in your horror remake syllabus. Welcome to House of Wax.
Houses of Wax
Unlike the previous film discussed in this series, House of Wax did not have the same devout and aggravated fanbase as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Jaume Collet-Serra’s 2005 reimagining is actually the third remake to spawn out of Charles S. Belden’s 1932 short story The Wax Works (not to be confused with the terrific 80s horror film). The first film adaptation arrived shortly after it was published with Mystery of the Wax Museum from Warner Brothers in 1933. A terrific pre-code horror film directed by the brilliant Michael Curtiz (Casablanca), Mystery of the Wax Museum is a wonderful Hollywood relic that was a pleasant financial success from the studio known for making nasty gangster pictures with that snarling Jimmy Cagney.
Warner Brothers would hold onto the property (they also distributed the 2005 version) and remake it in 1953 with up-and-coming horror icon Vincent Price at the helm. It was retitled House of Wax and was the main source of inspiration for Jaume Collet-Serra’s 2005 version. In the 1953 adaptation (shown in cheesy 3-D), Vincent Price plays a disfigured artistic genius who murders people and turns them into wax figures after his museum is destroyed. There’s no beating around the bush; this is schlocky horror at its finest and audiences ate it up. On a budget of $1 million, House of Wax (1953) would make nearly $24 million at the box office. It’s no wonder the Burbank studio would decide to revisit the project in the throes of the horror remake renaissance. Add a young, hot cast, buckets of blood (or wax), and a nu-metal soundtrack, and let’s shoot this picture.
The CW Runs Into a Buzzsaw
The cast of these remakes is one of my favorite things about them. More than the original horror films produced at this time, the remakes tend to wear the year they were made on their sleeve. For House of Wax, Warner Brothers rounded up Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Jared Padalecki, Jon Abrahams, Robert Ri’chard, and one other actor I’ll spend time with separately. These kids are beautiful and youthful and get absolutely decimated on screen. This movie doesn’t fall into the ‘torture porn’ subgenre like Saw or Hostel, but the practical gore effects are right on par.
It’s hard to articulate just how big of a star Chad Michael Murray was at this time. Emerging from Stars Hollow on the Gilmore Girls, he would go on to conquer the teen soap opera on One Tree Hill for nearly a decade. This doesn’t include his box office blockbusters like A Cinderella Story and Freak Friday. He was the “IT” boy of the early aughts. Not unlike his costar in this film, Elisha Cuthbert, who carved her own impressive Hollywood career. She is excellent as our lead, Carly, who navigates a punishing physical gauntlet. Easily the best performance in the film, but there are some other notable performances (Brian Van Holt, who plays both villains). Of course, I can’t forget to shout out everyone’s favorite Winchester brother from Supernatural, Jared Padalecki, who suffers the worst fate all the hapless youths. Sorry, Sam.
House of Wax, while plot heavy and bloated, is a tremendously fun time. Perhaps my favorite gimmick in the film (of which there are several) is that the titular house of wax is legitimately made of wax. That may seem like a silly idea when the movie is set in hot and humid Louisiana, but what a delightful concept. This isn’t a movie that wants to reinvent the wheel and viewing it through a critical lens almost forces you to miss the most audacious and humorous aspects of it. That’s not what I want to do. There are plenty of other films that call for such an evaluation, but with House of Wax (2005) your best bet is to sit down with a group of friends, order a pizza, drink some soda (or beer), and slip deep into that portal you pulled off the shelf.
“See Paris Die”
Look, I’m not here to defend the politics of the early 21st century. They weren’t good. And the further we move away from that time, the harder it has become to view some of the ways, especially young actresses and singers, were portrayed in the media. That being said, the “See Paris Die” campaign was a stroke of brilliance from Warner Brothers. That’s right, Paris Hilton semi-stars in this movie and the studio ran an ad campaign (and even made shirts) titled “See Paris Die.” How do you think that would go over today?
At the time, Paris Hilton was what the Kardashians would become in the late 2000s and 2010s: a reality television superstar from a wealthy family that the entire population communally loathed. It was a bad look for us. What I will say about “See Paris Die” is that it is evident that she was in on the joke. Posing for pictures wearing the shirt or standing next to displays with the slogan slapped on them. It was stunt casting taken to the extreme. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to make this film a financial success. It would gross only $71 million on a $40 million budget, but if you ask someone about this movie today, almost always the first thing they mention is, “Doesn’t Paris Hilton get murdered in that?”
I Didn’t Go To Therapy—I Went To Movies
The reason I found myself in Cody’s basement on that Friday night was not only because we were best friends but also because my father was terribly sick. His family took it upon themselves to whisk me away on their vacations and let me sleep over whenever I wanted. It wouldn’t be more than a couple of months after watching this movie that we returned from a similar Blockbuster trip to a message on Cody’s answering machine. It was my mother asking me to come home right away.
On August 21, 2005, my father passed away from cancer. I can’t remember what we rented from Blockbuster that afternoon, but I often think about it. I think about watching these movies in his basement or when we were lucky enough to sneak into a movie theater. I say this not out of self-pity or to downsize the positive effects of therapy, but because it is true. Movies have been and always will be an escape. My portal into worlds unknown. Some happy, some sad, some good, some bad, and some where beautiful people are murdered and turned into wax figures. Constantly fueling my restless, creative spirit, these movies offered me more than an escape. They offered me a way forward. And that will always be worth writing about.
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