House of Wax Blu-ray offers solid video and mediocre audio, but overall it's a poor Blu-ray release
House of Wax tells the story of a group of friends who fall prey to a sinister plot while passing
through a small town on their way to a college football game.
For more about House of Wax and the House of Wax Blu-ray release, see the House of Wax Blu-ray Review published by Martin Liebman on December 3, 2007 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.0 out of 5.
In House of Wax, a remake of the Vincent Price classic, we get a like totally
atmospheric, somewhat scary horror movie with, like, some teenagers who are going to like totally
die by the hands of some whacked-out folks in some abandoned town. Like, hello? One of the
baddies was a mechanic or something. He was like totally trustworthy at first, but then he totally
kills one of the teenagers! And then there was like this museum made of wax, and it was
soooo spooky! And then it like started to melt, and it got really hot inside. The people in this movie
like lose their cell phones or don't answer them, so it makes it hard for our heroes to totally, like,
text their BFFs every three minutes
like they do when they are at the movies. They would have been like, "OMG: this place is totally
NOT
COOL!"
This is like totally going to ruin my hair.
In all seriousness, House of Wax stars a plethora of teenagers who, you guessed it, will
be
knocked off one by one until one or two are left standing at the end. The main character and
hero
of the movie is Nick (Chad Michael Murray, Home of the Brave).
He is the only character I liked in this film. He's the tough guy with a troubled past, but he's got
a
good head on his shoulders in a crisis situation and doesn't put himself first. His sister, Carly,
(Elisha Cuthbert, 24), is the cookie-cutter girl who will find herself trapped by the maniac
and will probably find a way to make him chase her around for a while and get in a few decent
screams in the process. Also appearing are some more fodder, namely Carly's boyfriend Wade
(Jared Padalecki, Flight of the
Phoenix), Dalton (Jon Abrahams, Scary Movie), Blake
(Robert Ri'chard, Coach Carter), and his girlfriend Paige (Paris Hilton, The Simple
Life).
The six friends are on their way to the biggest college football game of the year. They take a
detour that Blake's GPS system suggests, and of course the road is closed and they are forced to
make the classic horror movie mistake of going through a dark, unsavory, and potentially
dangerous area instead. On top of that, they decide to camp out in a random field they know
nothing about. Soon enough a pickup truck drives up to them, shining its high beams, and
doesn't budge until Nick breaks one of the lights with a beer bottle. The next morning, after
finding the carcasses of dozens of road killed animals and meeting an odd man who puts them
there, they split up--Carly and Wade go into town
to get a new fan belt for his car, which mysteriously broke in the middle of the night, and the
others head into the city for the football game. Eventually, the four will turn back around
because
they are going to be late for the game, and of course, most of them will not live to see another
football game. The story gets a little more in-depth here. We find out a secret about the town,
there are some grisly murders, and there is the typical modern horror-style editing, music, pace,
and acting during the final act of the film.
That's House of Wax for you in a nutshell. This was a rather unimpressive film all
around.
It's a remake of a classic (please stop! Especially if you are going from Vincent Price to Paris
Hilton)
and it's a pretty generic film all around. I got many of the same vibes as I did while watching Gothika, another film
I
recently reviewed. I'm not surprised they both come from producer Joel Silver, who has several
other films of this variety under his belt, such as Ghost Ship and Thir13en
Ghosts,
two more subpar, sort of creepy, generically atmospheric, dumbed down pictures that are of the
"see 'em and forget 'em" type. The filmmakers have tried to create some side stories, I
assume to make the characters more "real" or "sympathetic," but it comes off as rather trite and
overblown. We discover Paris' character might be pregnant. OK, so what? Her being pregnant
has absolutely no bearing on the story at all. It makes a movie that is already about 20 minutes
too long that much longer (maybe 3-4 minutes) and there is no point to this sub plot. The
characters in the film are pretty dumb, too. Perhaps the biggest offense is a scene where one
character has been turned into a living wax sculpture. The character has lost all physical
mobility, save for his eyes, and when his friend finds him, he proceeds to try and "get [him] out
of this." He peels off a chunk of his skin revealing a bloody mess, so his solution is to peel more
of his flesh off. I know he's dead already for all intents and purposes, but come on. Not the best
way to try and rescue him. This film tries to distinguish itself visually, but I was never overly
impressed. There are a few "artsy" shots throughout the movie but they don't add much to the
film. It's more of a "ho-hum, look a that" reaction rather than a "wow! What a great shot!"
reaction.
Warner Brothers 1.85:1, 1080p presentation of House of Wax looks fine for the
most part. There is a pretty high level of detail throughout. However, this is a very dark picture.
The film is grainy at times, especially in some of the very dark scenes. Colors are a tad muted. We
rarely see any bright, vibrant colors. The wax museum, as one might expect, has a dull, colorless
look about it. Some of the very dark scenes suffered from black crush. The print is in pretty darn
good shape with no discernible defects or blemishes. The image never appears three-dimensional.
It looks rather flat and lifeless on screen. Still, there are no major problems here. It's just not
meant to be a pretty, colorful film, and what we get with this Blu-ray release is likely a pretty close
approximation of what director Jaume Collet-Serra meant for us to see.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 track employed by Warner Brothers on this release is adequate yet a little
underwhelming. The track does feature good, tight bass throughout. The track really picks up
when the action does. Once the first character is killed, the music gets loud, the volume cranks up,
and the soundstage is filled with notes of dread and doom. It's a pretty good score and is one of the
better things about the movie. The majority of the action takes place across the front soundstage.
I didn't notice anything too special. Separation is OK, but not phenomenal. Dialogue sometimes
sounded a bit harsh, but was clear and discernible more often than not. Surrounds are used
sparingly, even in the action-packed final moments of the film. I was not overly impressed with this
soundtrack, but it suffices.
There aren't a lot of extras here. There is no commentary and nothing significant to speak of.
There is a B-Roll and Bloopers Video Cast Commentary (480p, 26:30) that features some
of
the cast discussing the movie and outtakes as they watch from a sofa. This is perhaps the
dreariest and dullest feature, ever. Hilton, Cuthbert, Murray, and Padalecki, the participants,
come across as,
frankly, four airheads. As dumb as I thought their characters were in the movie, these actors
came across worse in real life. I'll be honest here. I shut this feature off after a few minutes. I
couldn't stand it any longer.
Wax On (480p, 7:24) is a behind-the-scenes look at the design and making of the wax
museum used in the film. House Built on Wax (480p, 10:11) features a look at the
visual effects employed throughout the film. From Location: Joel Silver Reveals 'House of
Wax' (480p, 1:11) is a chat with Joel Silver, co-founder of Dark Castle Entertainment,
talking
up the film. I guess this is supposed to be funny with Silver on the set of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,
talking in the middle of a shootout
and getting run over by a car. Thankfully it was short.
Rounding out the supplements are a gag reel (480p, 3:16), an alternate opening (480p, 1:38),
and the obligatory theatrical trailer (480p, 2:25).
House of Wax struck me as a generally lousy horror movie. Even Nick, the one character I
liked, could have been fleshed out a little more. Overall, performances were awful, the script
generic and predictable, and the direction, at times, tried to be cute rather than effective resulting
in some overly artistic and misplaced shots for a film of this type. I feel that if the film was
tightened up in the editing room and the runtime trimmed by about 20 minutes, the movie could
have been elevated from "bad" to "passable." Technically, this Blu-ray disc is
fine, but it's not one that you'll leave near the player to use for demonstration purposes. The
supplements were weak, even for a movie like this. This is the second time I have seen House
of Wax and I remember liking it a little more the first time around (about 3 months ago).
Therefore, I'd only recommend giving House of Wax a rent, and only if you've seen almost
everything else at the store already.
On October 19, Warner Home Video will release a horror double feature Blu-ray: Thir13en Ghosts / House of Wax - of which the former is new to high-definition in the US, whereas the latter was released separately in 2006. This two-disc pack was previously available ...
