FRIGHT FEST: HOUSE OF WAX

 In House of Wax (2005), a group of rowdy college students take a road trip to a college football game. After camping out for a night, they awaken the next morning to find one of their cars has had their fan belt severed. Making a quick detour into the small town of Ambrose for a replacement, they find their trip delayed indefinitely as they will find only terror, torture, and death in the small town and it's waxy tourist traps.

House of Wax was a film that seriously fucked me up when I first saw it back in 2005/2006, and it still holds up surprisingly well today. Elisha Cuthbert (Carly) and Chad Michael Murray (Nick) make for great heroes who are easy to root for. Their friends…not so much, though Jared Padalecki has a very disturbing extended scene. Also, Paris Hilton isn't as terrible as you might expect.

Our two leads do share a believable amount of chemistry (some might say too much chemistry. Not this reviewer, though), and it's easy to buy them as siblings/twins. Brian Van Holt (Bo) and Sam Harkess (Vincent) are effective monsters with decent backstories, although the partially CGI face reveal of Vincent in the 3rd act does leave much to be desired.

The screenplay isn’t the strongest as there is A LOT of expository dialogue early on (though I do really dig the themes involving twins/siblings). Everything after the 21 minute mark kicks ass, though, and all the horror hits its mark. The  House of Wax and Town of Wax are possibly the real stars here, as they are creepy, scary, disturbing creations. The film itself does share similarities to 1979's Tourist Trap (Both are set in tourist traps that feature life-like, creepy figures), though it would be unfair to call House of Wax a remake of that movie.

With a cool, fiery finale, House of Wax remains an effective, brutal and scary horror flick. It’s one of the best horror films of the early-mid aughts (Bonus points for choosing My Chemical Romance's Helena for the end credits song. Easily the band's best song.). Between Orphan and this, director Jaume Collet-Sera easily earns his horror degree.

4 STARS