House of Wax (2005)

House of Wax: Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. With Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Paris Hilton. A group of teens are unwittingly stranded near a strange wax museum and soon must fight to survive and keep from becoming the next exhibit.

“House of wax is a typical slasher in many respects but that does not take away from the certain charm it holds…it has pretty much everything you would want in a horror film.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe plot is simple and standard for the genre. We are introduced to a group of young adults on their way to a football game. Carly Jones (Elisha Cuthbert) a sweet yet sassy girl who is nervous about moving to the city for a new job. Her trouble-making bad-boy brother Nick (Chad Michael Murray), supportive best friend Paige (Paris Hilton). Along with Carlyu0026#39;s sweet and protective boyfriend Wade (Jared Padalecki) and rounding off the cast Dalton (Jon Abrahams) proving comic relief, and Blake (Robert Riu0026#39;chard) Paigeu0026#39;s boyfriend who is really just a token character. whilst hoping to score tickets to the final football game of the season. Along the way, they run into some car trouble, and are forced to camp in the woods where they enter a desolate town where nothing is what it appears to be. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhatu0026#39;s nice about House of Wax is its relatively slow burning, sure there are some jump scares and creepy moments but the real action does not start until around the 40 minute mark, some might call this dull but for me it only makes the third act even more impressive.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eDespite the little character development, the acting is surprisingly good and helps make the characters likable. Jared makes a sympathetic turn as Wade but the real stars are Elisha and Chad. Elisha gives a great performance as Carly and is one of the better lead actresses Iu0026#39;ve seen in recent horror. She is vulnerable and strong at the same time, portraying fear very well indeed. Chad despite his pretty boy image does a good job as the bad-boy and unlikely hero of the film, he is strong and protective and you root for him as he tries to save himself and his sister. The only problem i had with this paring was the high sexual tension there seemed to be between them. There were many moments where you felt as if they were about to kiss and its almost better to just picture them as girlfriend and boyfriend during the final act.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film is of course not perfect, the dialog was weak and the big u0026quot;twistu0026quot; was hardly anything surprising as you could have predicted it from the start. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe ending tried to give you another u0026quot;twistu0026quot; which again failed in the same way the previous one did….in fact the whole ending was a let down. The characters make very stupid choices through out the film such as not making sure the attacker is dead, splitting up etc and whilst these are also a given in slasher films it never stops being annoying. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe third act was pretty intense though if a little short but all in all the film is a great fun ride full of scares and tension….also great kills and leads you want to live instead of hoping they would die.”