I HAVE to admit that House of Wax gave me a degree of difficulty in the “suspension of disbelief” department. I know this horror film is loosely based on the Fifties Vincent Price original, but half way in, the spectacle of hotel heiress Paris Hilton in red undies cavorting around the Australian jungle? For a second I thought I was watching Hollywood’s answer to I’m a Celebrity Get Me out of Here, or in this case, I’m a Celebrity Get Me a Career, even.
Filmed in Australia but set in the middle of nowhere masquerading as America’s Deep South, House of Wax chronicles the terrors endured by a collection of road-tripping college kids after fatigue and fading light force them to move off-road and set up camp for the night. A full moon, an unwelcome visitor together with a deathly stench emanating from an unknown source (the script, maybe?) succeed in setting a suspenseful tone, but things really take a turn for the sinister the next morning when they discover one of their cars has been interfered with.
Enter a local hick truck driver with dental issues who offers to drive Wade (Jared Padalecki) and his real “purdy” girlfriend Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) to Ambrose, the nearest town and home to the House of Wax. Needless to say, all is not as it seems in Ambrose and some serious heroics are going to be required if a sticky, if somewhat statuesque, end is to be avoided by all concerned.
It needs to be said that House of Wax is a less-than-memorable piece of fluff, but director Jaume Collet-Serra does deliver a couple of good moments. The special effects are top-notch, while Cuthbert and Paris Hilton constitute the ideal scream team – Cuthbert’s high cheekbones perfectly complimenting Paris’s high, er, chest bones. Chad Michael Murray also shows good pretty-boy potential as the hero waiting to happen. Not for the squeamish, the over-40s, or style-conscious males who might be contemplating any of those wax treatments that seem to be all the rage nowadays. The torture inflicted by the House of Wax’s resident “artist”, Vincent (Brian Van Holt), is bound to provoke second thoughts about that sack, crack, and back job you might have been promising yourself.
