Summary
A gang of blandly attractive college kids (and Paris Hilton) act like idiots on a poorly planned road trip, and are subsequently stranded in a creepy deserted town, where they also act like idiots. Unfortunately for them, the town is home to a murderous pair of twins, who are more than happy to add the miscreants to their wax museum. Unfortunately for us, it's really boring.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
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Barbara's Rant
Seriously, they couldn't have cast a duller, more forgettable bunch of kids if they tried. I think that's why I actually liked Paris Hilton (which surprised the hell out of me) - she was the only one who was remotely memorable. Well, that and I think getting yourself cast in a horror movie is a terrific use of her personal fortune and bizarre notoriety. Should I ever become a hotel heiress, you'd better believe that's the first thing I'm going to do. I think I'd go for a secondary character in a zombie movie, though. That way, I'd get to bravely fight the zombies for the first half of the movie, and then after a good, bloody death scene, I could come back as a zombie and attack my former friends. Since Barbara Jo would also be a hotel heiress, she'd be in it with me, and there would a tragic, heart-rending confrontation where one of us has been zombified, and then a big fight scene, after which we'll both be zombies and shuffle off into the sunset.
Sadly, none of that happened in House of Wax. I couldn't even totally get behind the Paris death scene, partly because I was bored with everyone else and with her gone I was stuck with them, and partly because girlfriend can't really act. She's so cold and plastic looking, her version of mind-numbing terror ends up looking like annoyance.
You know, on paper I really should have liked this movie. You'd think a story about crazy artists who are making a complete reproduction of their town in animatronic wax figures created from the corpses of hapless visitors would be right up my alley. But it was just impossible to care, and it was just a cruel joke that they named the artist Vincent, as it just made me think about how fantastic Vincent Price was at playing obsessed, murderous loons. It just made this movie's Vincent (Bo) seem even duller than he already was. So let me suggest that you forget about this movie and go watch his House of Wax, or better yet, The Abominable Dr. Phibes. I promise it'll be a lot more fun, and if you simply must see Paris as well, I hear there's a video of her available for download on a few sites.
BARBARA MAY
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