HOUSE OF WAX (2005)

Remake of a classic. Former ‘teen’ stars. Paris Hilton. Just these ingredients alone might make some viewers weary about what they were about to stumble into. HOUSE OF WAX is a modern retelling of a great Vincent Price classic about…well, a house of wax. The older version had Price’s character using actual people who he would, um, waxify, to put on display at a wax museum. I’ll come right out and say this remake should not have worked. At all. Somehow, at the pitch meeting, they probably decided it would be a terrible idea to do a beat-for-beat rehash and make yet another wax museum on display for tourists to unknowingly gawk at waxified unfortunate peeps. However, they went the smartest route possible and while they gave it the cliché of people getting lost in a random town; having a town in the middle of nowhere full of waxy folks is a lot more scarier than a museum in the social media age (even in 2005 social media age). And how about when they first pull up into the church?! Additionally, while the old ‘getting lost in a strange place’ is familiar, the storyline is different enough from the original to stand on its own legs. And the casting isn’t bad at all. Somehow they all make it work. Even Amber Sweet does a decent job (get that reference?). Though there are few things I hate more than remakes, this one is decent and entertaining enough to have some rewatch value. And we get to see the waxing process!! It’ll make you not want to road trip anywhere weird for a while after viewing. And that’s a compliment. Check it out…so you can wax poetic with your friends after.

SLASH SCENE: THE WAXING PROCESS!!

SLASH SCORE: 4/5