Common Sense Note
This movie contains repeated gross-out horror images, including skin ripping off faces; bodies subjected to stabbing, chopping, and piercing; girls screaming and weeping; shotguns blasting; deer carcasses rotting; bugs crawling; even a finger being cut off with wire cutters. The killers keep fetuses in jars, blame their mother, and target boys and girls equally, though Paris Hilton is the only victim to strip to her red bra and panties and give her boyfriend (off-screen, but plainly indicated) oral sex. The killer superglues one girl's mouth shut, and she cuts it open so it bleeds and she can summon help; characters drink, smoke, and use harsh language.
Families might wonder at the characters' extreme dimwittedness; even for generic plotting, their willingness to explore sinister places and walk headlong into obvious trouble is remarkable. Initially at odds, Carly and her twin brother Nick learn to get along as their friends are killed off; families might discuss their display of sibling bonding, except that they are paralleled by the killer twins, once conjoined, now just thoughtlessly murderous. Families can also talk about the stereotypical representation of the villains as underclass and vaguely rural.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) and Paige (Paris Hilton) are supposedly best friends, but they're mostly dedicated to pleasing their boyfriends, gentle Wade (Jared Padalecki) and lusty Blake (Robert Ri'chard), respectively. The film begins as Carly's twin brother Nick (youngish-teen heartthrob Chad Michael Murray), angry and pouty, has just returned home; with goofy Dalton (Jon Abrahams), the group decides to go camping en route to a "big game" the next day (a sold-out event, for which they plan to purchase scalped tickets). Around the campfire, they drink, smoke cigarettes, act bored, and make out.
The next morning, Carly falls into a pit of bloody, rotted fleshy muck, where a character named only "Roadkill" (Damon Herriman) tosses variously decayed carcasses he's found. This is yucky, and leaves Carly's t-shirt bloody. As she changes into another, Roadkill looks on lasciviously.
Wade's Mustang's timing belt has been mysteriously destroyed during the night. But the kids push on, Wade and Carly accepting a ride in Roadkill's smelly pickup truck. By the time they finally reach the small, forgotten town of Ambrose (where they plan to buy a new belt), the film has already taken too long -- the first half's pacing is deliberate, as if the premise needs careful exposition, which it does not. HOUSE OF WAX is a remake of the Vincent price film in name and gimmick only; in all other respects it's a slasher film, in which pretty young people are horribly killed one by one. At the literal "House of Wax" (inside are wax figures, wax walls, wax furniture, wax floors -- apparently the sun does not shine brightly in Ambrose), the victims and eventual survivors are repeatedly frightened, caught in the dark, tied up, cut, and tortured.
Carly and Wade are separated, meaning only that he's the film's first casualty, while she discovers the monstrosity of their host, Bo (Brian Van Holt) and must run, lose her cell phone, and cry until at last Nick shows up to save her. This isn't to say Carly isn't inventive in her efforts to fight back or escape, but she does endure much abuse (including having her finger chopped off, leaving her with a bloody stump for the rest of the film, and sitting through What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, featuring a very waxy looking Bette Davis, as she attempts to blend in with wax viewers at the local movie house).
The climax is predictably bloody and brutal, as well as fiery (to underline the film's inconsistent religious iconography). Good twins Nick and Carly triumph over bad twins Bo and Vincent (both played by Van Holt, one with scarred, waxed over face, indication of his general sickness). Most alarming, the movie leaves open the possibility of a sequel.
Families who enjoyed this movie might also like 1953's House of Wax, starring the grand Vincent Price (though the two films have little in common save for the creepy gimmick of living people turned into wax figures). If they want to see a more effective bad mom/scary house film, they can try Hitchcock's Psycho; for screaming girls/scary house movies, there is the classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) or the spoofy Scream, both leagues smarter than this movie.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentParis Hilton strips to underwear. |
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ViolenceBrutal, bloody assaults on college-age victims. |
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LanguageSome strong language. |
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Social BehaviorPsychotic killers make victims into wax figures for their museum. |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoCharacters drink beer and smoke cigarettes. |
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