HOUSE OF WAX

You know how sometimes, in the $50 round of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, they’ll ask a ridiculously easy question and give four multiple-choice answers: one of which is obviously right, two that are just kind of there, and a goof answer that is so obviously wrong that you could have birth defects that haven’t even been discovered yet and still not pick it? For example, the question will be something like, “What color is a fire truck?” and the choices will be, “red,” “white,” “yellow,” and “your uncle’s penis in a shopping cart.” Well, if you decide to watch House of Wax, be prepared to spend ninety minutes with a group of kids who not only keep picking “D,” but keep acting surprised when they find out they’re wrong.

I’m not talking about typical “let’s split up—you go check out the woods while I go stick my head in the Iron Maiden and look for clues”- type shit. The characters in House of Wax are so slow they would need an even Specialer Olympics designed for them. For example: imagine you’re posed with the following question. “You’re all alone. While looking for your missing friend, you happen upon a completely deserted town. At the center of the town is a creepy house made of entirely of wax. Despite having just learned that the town was once populated by a wax-sculpture obsessed psycho and the huge “CLOSED” sign on the door, your best plan of action would be to: (A) Realize your friend is hanging from a meathook somewhere and go back home and call dibs on his "X-Box" before anyone else can, (B) regroup with your friends and notify the authorities, (C) Both A and B, or (D) Pick the lock and proceed into the house of wax. Two things worth noting: this type of shit happened throughout the entire movie, and this was actually one of the smarter instances of it happening.

I don’t care how sweet Paris Hilton’s death scene was…this constant moronic logic mentioned above completely ruined the movie for me. That, and the fact that the lead characters are a bunch of asshole punks that you will hate if you are any type of decent human being. By the end of the movie, they’ve chalked up three accounts of breaking and entering, one account of damaged property, and one account of assault. The film itself was molded from the same template as Hostel and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, almost scene-for-scene, right down to the elongated, no cutaway, torture and death scene that all the horror movies of the early 2000s had. The only difference was that in House of Wax, the characters had to break into the house of the killer to get it. I’m telling you: these kids really had to work to get killed. Hopping over fences, tearing down “closed” signs, breaking windows, picking locks—you’d have an easier time escaping from Alcatraz, and even then, your prize for success would be freedom. I honestly believe that if this house’s welcome mat was a pool filled with alligators, these kids still would’ve found a way to get in, and what did they receive for their efforts? Hot wax in their orifices.

I give House of Wax TWO JASON HEADS, and I consider that generous for a movie who’s tough guy is Chad Michael Murray. That’s like saying Justin Timberlake is the toughest member of N’Sync. Maybe he is, but he’s still a member of N’Sync.

I should also note that a good one-and-a-half of those stars were earned by Elisha Cuthbert’s tank top.

Up next, a movie who’s title is only three letters away from being “Night Feeders.”