Every week, we spotlight a kill that we just can’t get enough of.
Released in 2005, The Shallows director Jaume Collet-Serra’s House of Wax was one of the better remakes to come along at a time when it seemed like every horror movie was being remade. Playing out a bit more like a remake of Tourist Trap than the same-named Vincent Price film, House of Wax hit all the proper slasher notes, serving up a smorgasbord of attractive young actors and brutally butchering them in creative and over the top ways. One of those actors, the subject of much fan-flaming ahead of the film’s release, actually wasn’t much of an actor at all.
At the height of her status as a celebrity who didn’t do much to earn that title, Paris Hilton was cast in House of Wax, which naturally didn’t sit well with many horror fans. The consensus, as I recall, was that someone like Hilton belonged nowhere near the horror genre – admittedly, the idea of Paris Hilton starring in a remake of a Vincent Price film did seem somewhat blasphemous.
But the casting of Paris Hilton, as it turned out, was actually one of the most brilliant things about House of Wax. More a publicity stunt than anything else, Hilton was put in House of Wax so that we could all enjoy seeing her get killed on screen (who the hell wouldn’t buy a ticket to THAT movie?!), and oh boy did Collet-Serra make sure her death scene was as enjoyable as possible. Hilton’s character, Paige Edwards, gets a gnarly metal pole thrown through her head at the 1-hour, 17-second mark, and the camera lingers on the carnage as the killer slides her head down the pole.
Smartly, Hilton’s death scene actually became part of the House of Wax marketing strategy. In a world before hashtags, the advertising slogan “See Paris Die” promised that anyone who bought a ticket was going to see the single most irritating celebrity of the time meet a gruesome end, which surely played no small part in the film earning $70 million at the worldwide box office. It was a marketing gimmick ripped straight out of the William Castle playbook, and one must give Hilton credit for being such a good sport about her death being used to promote a movie.
Seen above, “See Paris Die” t-shirts were even whipped up!
As it turned out, Hilton wasn’t all that bad in the movie, turning in a performance that Roger Ebert perfectly described as “no better or worse than the typical Dead Post-Teenager,” adding that she “does exactly what she is required to do in a movie like this, with all the skill—admittedly finite—that is required.” Not exactly high praise, but she was as good as she needed to be.
#SeeParisDie below!