Editorials
In Defense Of ‘House of Wax’ – Anniversary Edition!
Today is a very special day: it is the 10-year anniversary of the remake of House of Wax. Okay, I jest. It’s really not that special of a day, but I thought it would be appropriate to bring back our “In Defense Of” series to discuss what I think is a very underrated film. Is it perfect? No, but it’s a helluva lot better than its 25% Rotten Tomatoes score and 41 MetaCritic score would suggest. Plus, it’s fun!
Let’s get the obligatory Paris Hilton section out of the way first. I am not particularly for or against her so I won’t bash her or her acting, but casting her in House of Wax was definitely a publicity stunt. Her reality series The Simple Life (as well as her actual social life) was at the peak of its popularity, so it apparently looked like the smartest thing to do. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant, but really, she’s not bad in the movie. She does exactly what she is asked to do for the role of Paige (and her character isn’t even that annoying!). The best way to describe her casting is trendy, and everyone immediately hopped on the hate bandwagon. It’s depressing that House of Wax will forever be remembered as “that one where Paris Hilton gets a pole thrown through her face,” because it’s much more than that.
I think part of the reason I love this movie so much (and yes, I do love it) is simply because of nostalgia. The trailer was one of those that I would watch repeatedly (I just love that montage choir music at the end) and I gathered a bunch of friends to go see it in a theater the Friday it opened after school let out (I was a sophomore in high school at the time). It’s a strong trailer, to be sure. and it almost made my list of favorite horror movie trailers:
Looking back on some of the 2005 reviews for the film, the consensus seemed to be that it was too long, the first 40 or so minutes were too slow, the characters were dumb, the acting was poor, and the film was too vile/sadistic/violent. Most of the horror films coming out at the time were far more violent than House of Wax (Hostel would be released just eight months later), so those criticisms don’t make a lot of sense. I could just be desensitized, though. What say you on this subject?
From an effects and gore standpoint, House of Wax doesn’t disappoint. There aren’t many kills in the film, but each one of them stand out. While Hilton’s death gets the most discussion when the film is brought up, it’s the below scene that is one of the best set pieces in House of Wax (though not the best, which I’ll get to in a second):
It’s apparent that the film has a good sense of humor about itself, which is something that many critics at the time didn’t detect. This is why the characters making dumb decisions (one review even pointed out that they split up a record four times during the film) isn’t particularly bothersome. The film comes across like an extended (and violent) episode of Scooby-Doo, and viewing the film as such makes it much more entertaining to watch. Whether or not that was intentional, we’ll never know (director Jaume Collet-Serra also directed the 2009 film Orphan, so make of that what you will). The “bad acting” ties into that too, though I think that Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray do a perfectly fine job playing estranged siblings.
House of Wax is long for a horror film. At 113 minutes, it wears out it’s welcome a little bit. The criticism that the first 40 minutes are slow is valid, and it could have done with about 10-15 minutes cut from the first act. The intention was probably to allow the audience to spend more time with the characters, but other than Cuthbert’s and Murray’s characters (with the possible exception of Jared Padalecki), they’re all pretty one-dimensional. Again, if you go into it with the Scooby-Doo mindset, that’s not a bad thing! But at nearly 2 hours, the film could have used a better editor.
My final point (and one that most critics agree on) is that the climax of the film is a beast. Some of the CGI is spotty (the shot of the exterior of the house warping has always looked laughably bad to me), but it’s a showstopper of a set piece if I ever saw one. I would argue that it’s the main reason to see the film, but as I’ve stated already, I think the whole thing is a blast.
What are your thoughts on House of Wax? Do you agree with me that it’s a fun, goofy Scooby-Doo-style romp? Or do you think it’s lazy filmmaking at its worst? Let me know in the comments below!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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