Dark Castle Entertainment began with a goal to remake William Castle’s films but quickly evolved to producing original content. Their initial slate of films at the turn of the century delivered memorable, beloved fan favorites in horror, but what set them apart wasn’t just a reinvention of classics but impressive production design, set pieces, and terrifying villains worthy of such lavish productions.
1999’s House on Haunted Hill set the bar high right out of the gate with its twisted take on a sprawling, Gothic style psychiatric hospital. 2001’s Thirteen Ghosts upped the ante with a mechanized glass mansion that doubled as a ghostly prison. Ghost Ship followed suit with an elaborate, creepy ocean liner. Yet House of Wax managed to outdo them all with the creation of an entire ghost town with a disturbing wax museum as its centerpiece. It provided the perfect setting for one brutal slasher, slicing up gruesome and memorable kills that would solidify the film as one of Dark Castle’s best, even if it took audiences 15 years to move past stunt casting and embrace its charms.
Very, very loosely based on the 1953 film of the same name, House of Wax was penned by Chad and Carey W. Hayes (The Conjuring). Likely drawing from their bond as twins, this remake centers around two pairs of twins; the homicidal Sinclair brothers (both played by Brian Van Holt) and the protagonist Jones siblings. The dichotomy of good twins versus evil is broken down further between each pair. Formerly conjoined, Vincent hides behind a mask and his extroverted brother due to horrific disfigurement from the surgery that separated them. While Bo might be the more socially normal of the pair, his conventional appearance is a mask for his sadistic nature.
At the other end of the spectrum are Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) and Nick Jones (Chad Michael Murray). Nick is the black sheep of the family, consistently in trouble with authority and armed with a bad attitude to match. It breeds resentment as Carly is the favored child among parents solely for not being the problem child. Those tensions kick off the setup, with Carly less than thrilled that Nick has tagged along with their friends’ trip to an important out of town college football game. One that none of them will ever see because a detour through a rural area leaves them stranded and ultimately plunges them into the Sinclairs’ isolated town they’ve built for themselves. Because this is a slasher, those friends wind up dead one by one, building up to an epic twin battle for survival.
Creative kills are crucial to the slasher, and House of Wax brings the goods. The stunt casting of Paris Hilton unleashed a torrent of vitriol toward both her and the film. Still, her performance as Carly’s friend Paige is perfectly serviceable, and her death delightfully nasty. Nick’s friend Dalton (Jon Abrahams) also meets an unforgettably grisly demise, yet none of the kills in the movie can top the excruciating death of Carly’s boyfriend Wade (Jared Padalecki). Simply for the crime of being too curious, Wade’s Achilles tendons are severed, and he’s subjected to the lengthy process of being prepped for Vincent’s wax museum- he’s burned and coated in hot wax that melds to his skin, leaving him paralyzed and left to die. All of which makes for a cringe-worthy reveal later on when his friends find him posed at the wax museum.
House of Wax marked Jaume Collet-Serra’s (Orphan, The Shallows) directorial feature debut, and the ambitious filmmaker insisted everything was handled as practical as possible. That meant actual and extensive use of wax, practical special effects, and a detailed ghost town built in the middle of nowhere. VFX only to be used when necessary or unavoidable. Graham “Grace” Walker’s excellent production design cannot be praised enough. The climactic showdown between the Sinclair twins and the Jones siblings is enhanced tenfold by the spectacular set-piece in which a fight for life and death occurs during an actual melting house of wax.
As a quick aside, in a genre that loves to overuse Night of the Living Dead as the background film playing on TV or the big screen, it’s refreshing that House of Wax employs Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? for its memorable theater sequence. More variety like this, please.
With a core cast of rising young stars, many of them hailing from The CW network, and a rock soundtrack heavily of its time, this is a classic early aughts horror movie through and through. Yet Collet-Serra’s practical-heavy vision and the incredibly talented crew behind the lens delivered a vicious modern slasher that brought insanely memorable kills set against an equally remarkable setting.
Upon initial theatrical release on May 6, 2005, the film under-performed in comparison to its more substantial budget, though home release proved a bit kinder. House of Wax was nominated for 2005’s Golden Raspberry for Worst Picture, Worst Remake, and Worst Supporting Actress for poor Paris Hilton, who’s casting warded off many stalwart fans. None of it deserved, especially with the context of other 2005 releases like The Fog remake or Alone in the Dark. Like many worthwhile horror movies that endure the test of time, the consensus has turned around. House of Wax only bears faint echoes of the film in which it’s based on, and doesn’t reinvent the slasher. But it is a tremendously entertaining horror movie boasting incredible production design and gory kills that’ll stick with you.
One of the taglines cheekily put it best: The flesh is weak. Wax is forever.
