HOUSE OF WAX (2005)
Collector's Edition Blu-ray
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 113 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast: Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Paris Hilton, Jared Padalecki, Jon Abrahams, Robert Ri’chard
Scream Factory give another Dark Castle Entertainment millennial horror remake a Collector's Edition Blu-ray, this time it's the remake of House of Wax, a very loose remake of the 1953 Vincent Price film, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows, and the upcoming DCU film Black Adam), with more than a smidge of influence from the uncredited Tourist Trap thrown into it, and lots of influence from classic slashers.
The film begins with six annoying college friends on a road trip to a football game; we have a final-girl Carly (Elisha Cuthbert, The Girl Next Door), (Jared Padalecki, TV's Supernatural), her troubled brother Nick (Chad Michael Murray, Freaky Friday), his buddy Dalton (Jon Abrahams, Kids), and couple Blake (Robert Ri'chard, TV's Cousin Skeeter) and Paige (Paris Hilton, Repo! The Genetic Opera). Trouble arises when a car breakdown sidetracks them with a detour into the eerie remote town of Ambrose, a place that doesn't even appear on any maps, which is usually not a good sign.
While exploring the town for an auto parts store they notice that there doesn't seem to be anyone around - another bad sign. It's eerily vacant, but their curiosity gets the better of them when they are intrigued by the towns macabre roadside attraction, Trudy's House of Wax. Eventually they do come across a mechanic name Bo (Brian Van Holt, TV's John From Cincinnati), who at first seems to be a helpful sort, but then he begins to ooze menace, and the out-of-towner find themselves in a wax town full of unspeakable horrors.
I had been hoping that a re-watch of this might turn out more favorable than my theater-going experience back in '05. When I saw it my initial impression was that the characters were really annoying, and getting to know them for the first two-thirds of the film was a slog. However, the final leg of the wax horror was quite a bit of fun with some very cool production design and some great special effects work that showed a lot of imagination from the set/art designers at least.
The biggest issue for me is that the characters are all annoying, either just reprehensible shallow people or on the other end ridiculously earnest, but none of them are people I would want to hang with, let alone be stuck in a creepy wax town in the middle of nowhere. The film takes too much time setting up the characters, and I don't care about any of theme enough to want to sit through the set-up again. I will say, that with fifteen years between me and the first time I watched it that my opinion of Paris Hilton's acting has somewhat improved. She's actually not bad, or at least certainly no worse than anyone else, but at the time their was so much social media saturation around this vapid hotel heiress that the very sight of her annoyed me. She's not bad, she's not great either, but she did decent work conveying fear during her final moments. That said, I think the movie studio certainly tapped into the social media zeitgeist of the moment with their "Watch Paris Die!" ad campaign for this one, I am sure it put asses in seats, and I was one of them.
The good stuff here is the incredible production design of the town of Ambrose, a weird art-deco relic in the middle of nowhere, that looks like it took inspiration from not only the Vincent Price '53 film, but to my eyes it the art-deco look comes straight out The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1953). The design of the gas station, the church and the wax museum are quite impressive. M0st impressive is the titular House of Wax, design completely in wax, from the exterior walls to the furniture and stairs, which leads to a literal melt-down of a finale that is far and away the best thing about the movie.
The baddies here are a pair of twin brothers with a weird surgical origin story, we even get a cool scene set in '74 that opens the film, both of whom are played by Brian Van Holt. One is a seemingly affable guy the other a cellar-dwelling slasher villain who creates horrific wax imprisonments for the victims. His basement wax works is a cool looking set-up and he looks like a hulking serial killer who hides a horrific disfigurement beneath an eerie wax mask. The process of creating his wax figures is also realized quite nicely with cool little touches like tears rolling down the face of the was sculptures, and when others find their friends imprisoned in was they realize how unable they are to help them, having had the hot was fused to their skin.
The flaming finale involves the House of Wax going up in flames, and it looks great as the growing inferno begins to warp and melt away the art-deco structure, a mix of well-done practical miniature work and some digital, but it does not look too-digital, which is pretty rare of a 2005 production. The kill scenes are not bad, there's a decapitation, a gross roadkill dead pit, fingers cut-off, Hilton speared through the forehead with a javelin thrown pipe, and a stabbing in the neck that initially happens off screen but when the killer comes across the victim still alive on the ground he stops the handle of the knife further into the victims neck, which was a nice touch. The waxing of the victims is also pretty painful looking, and is followed up with interesting shots of the wax figures being broken or shot at, revealing decay below the surface or skulls for of roaches. We also get some foot damage that is sure to make you shriek if you have an aversion to such Pet Sematary-ish sort of things.
The film overall is still very much so-so for me, it takes a bit too long to get going, the character set-up is overly long, but the finale has aged well and offers some quite memorable scenes of melted-wax horror. Also be in the lookout for Damon Herriman (Once Upon a Time In Hollywood) as a roadkill clean-up guys who could have been a nice addition to the Sawyer cannibal-clan from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Audio/Video: House of Wax (2005) arrives on Blu-ray with a new 2K scan of the interpositive in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. The new scan is solid, offering solid colors and black levels, wit some good depth and clarity. The neon signs in the wax-town particularly look great. Fine detail looks great also, close-ups of textures and facial features offer solid fine detail, and the close-up of wax figures are smooth and waxy looking, which in this instance is a good thing. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround with optional English subtitles. The dialogue sounds great, never hard to discern and the score from John Ottman (Lake Placid) sound great. I do wish that Scream Factory would offer isolated music tracks on their releases, it's been on a few, but if they could make that a regulars feature I think fans would dig it.
Scream Factory offer a selection of archival and new extras. The archival stuff comes by way of 27-minutes of B-Roll and Bloopers Video Cast Commentary, the brief 2-minute From Location: Joel Silver Reveals the House of Wax, thre cool 7-minute Wax On: The Design of House of Wax, a 10-minute
The House Built on Wax: The Visual Effects of House of Wax featurette, the 1-minute Alternate Opening: Jennifer Killed, which is pretty cool, a 5-minute gag reel, asnd 20-minute of vintage EPK on-set interviews from actors Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Paris Hilton, Jared Padalecki, John Abrahams, Robert Ri’chard, director Jaume Collet-Serra, producers Joel Silver and Susan Levin, plus the theatrical trailer.
New stuff begins with an 8-minute interview with actor Paris Hilton, who is quite glammed-up as you might imagine, she talks about being cast in the film, having known producer Joel Silver for years, the shoot in Australia, her co-stars, the 'See Paris Die' ad campaign used to promote the movie, and how she wanted to wear some sexy high heels for her chase and death scene but Silver shot it down. She gets into how "iconic" her death scene was and how people love to watch it every Halloween, which seems like an extreme exaggeration, but I guess if I was in a horror film I'd be pretty proud of it to.
Up next is an 8-minute interview with actor Robert Ri’Chard who talks a bit about the shoot in Australia but spends a lot of time talking about how smart and nice Hilton was, noting that she smelled great,
Composer John Ottman gets a six-minute interview conducted over Zoom and talks about how some composers pocket the money and score a film using synths but he spent the money o an orchestra for a bigger sounding score, though he did have to use a synth for the pipe organ arraignments, and how he spent some time looking for the best sounding program. He also gets into how he composes a theme and then uses variations on that theme throughout the score.
The last of the new disc extras is a nine-minute video conference interview with makeup effects artist Jason Baird. who gets into the construction of the wax figures and the construction of the town. How some of the was figures were people in masks, and getting into how when wax gets hot it can spontaneously combust, which is what happened when one of the sets caught fire and burned down!
The disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring cool new illustration the talented Joel Robsinon, with the original poster artwork on the reverse. The new artwork is also featured on the first-pressing only slipcover and on the disc itself.
Special Features:
- NEW 2K scan of the interpositive
- NEW Die, My Darling – an interview with actress Paris Hilton (8 min) HD
- NEW The Tale of Blake and Paige - an interview with actor Robert Ri’chard (5 min) HD
- NEW Organ Grinder – an interview with composer John Ottman (6 min) HD
- NEW To Me, They Live and Breathe – an interview with makeup effects artist Jason Baird (9 min) HD
- B-Roll and Bloopers Video Cast Commentary (27 min)
- From Location: Joel Silver Reveals the House of Wax (2 min)
- Wax On: The Design of House of Wax (7 min)
- The House Built on Wax: The Visual Effects of House of Wax (10 min)
- Alternate Opening: Jennifer Killed (1 min)
- Gag Reel (5 min)
- Vintage interviews with cast and crew from the electronic press kit with on-set interviews from actors Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Paris Hilton, Jared Padalecki, John Abrahams, Robert Ri’chard, director Jaume Collet-Serra, producers Joel Silver and Susan Levin, (20 min)
- NEW 2K scan of the interpositive
- NEW Die, My Darling – an interview with actress Paris Hilton (8 min) HD
- NEW The Tale of Blake and Paige - an interview with actor Robert Ri’chard (5 min) HD
- NEW Organ Grinder – an interview with composer John Ottman (6 min) HD
- NEW To Me, They Live and Breathe – an interview with makeup effects artist Jason Baird (9 min) HD
- B-Roll and Bloopers Video Cast Commentary (27 min)
- From Location: Joel Silver Reveals the House of Wax (2 min)
- Wax On: The Design of House of Wax (7 min)
- The House Built on Wax: The Visual Effects of House of Wax (10 min)
- Alternate Opening: Jennifer Killed (1 min)
- Gag Reel (5 min)
- Vintage interviews with cast and crew from the electronic press kit with on-set interviews from actors Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Paris Hilton, Jared Padalecki, John Abrahams, Robert Ri’chard, director Jaume Collet-Serra, producers Joel Silver and Susan Levin, (20 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
Scream Factory gives this Dark Castle Entertainment horror remake a solid special edition Blu-ray with pleasing A/V and over a 100-minutes of new and archival extras, plus we get a cool slipcover with new artwork. It's far from amazing but I do appreciate the melty-horror visuals and it is definitely a better watch than I had remembered.
Screenshots (Spoilers Ahead!) from
the Scream Factory Blu-ray:
Extras:
