House of Wax (2005 film)
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| House of Max | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Jaume Collet-Serra |
| Produced by | Bruce Berman Herb Gains Steve Richards |
| Written by | Charles Belden Chad Hayes Carey Hayes |
| Starring | Elisha Cuthbert Chad Michael Murray Brian Van Holt Paris Hilton Jared Padalecki Jon Abrahams |
| Music by | John Ottman |
| Cinematography | Stephen Windon |
| Editing by | Joel Negron |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  May 6, 2005 |
| Running time | 113 mins. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | USD $40,000,000[1] |
| Gross revenue | USD $68,766,121[1] |
| Official website | |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
House of Wax is a 2005 horror film, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. It is a very loose remake of the 1953 movie of the same name starring Vincent Price and the 1933 film Mystery of the Wax Museum, reworked into the format of a slasher movie. It was released to theaters May 6, 2005, and to DVD on October 25, 2005.
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[edit] Plot summary
The movie begins with a flashback to 1974. A woman is boiling hot wax to make wax masks while her young son is eating his breakfast in a high chair. Suddenly the father comes in holding a near hysterical second son who is kicking and screaming wildly. The second child needs to be strapped down in his high chair due to his apparently violent nature.
The present. Six youngsters are on their way to a highly anticipated football game. Carly Jones (Elisha Cuthbert) is an ambitious young woman who is planning to move to New York, her boyfriend Wade (Jared Padalecki) however, is a small-town boy who is hesitant about moving to the big city. They are joined on their trip by Carly's friend Paige Edwards (Paris Hilton) who is pregnant with her boyfriend Blake's (Robert Ri'chard) child, although she hasn't told him yet. Blake has invited Carly's brother Nick Jones (Chad Michael Murray), a convicted youth delinquent, to come along. Nick has brought along his rather annoying and immature friend Dalton Chapman (Jon Abrahams). When night falls the group decides to set up camp for the night in a field. After a while the campsite is visited by a mysterious stranger in a truck who refuses to come out of his truck, say what he wants or leave until Nick throws a beer bottle at the truck; thereby breaking one of it's headlights. Later that night, when everyone is asleep, someone again enters the camp to film the sleeping youngsters with Dalton's videocamera.
The next morning Wade discovers that someone has cut the fan belt in his car. He and Carly decide to hitch a ride into the nearby town of Ambrose with a roadkill transporter they encounter, while the rest of the group goes to the football game. However, the rest of the group soon find themselves in a traffic jam and decide to return to the camp side to wait for Wade and Carly to return from Ambrose.
In the largely abandoned Ambrose, Wade and Carly are told by the local garage owner, Bo, to wait for half an hour while he attends the funeral of a friend. The couple decides to spend this time by visiting the run-down wax museum. Scared by the rather eerie wax figures and the sudden appearance of a creepy man outside the window of the museum, Wade and Carly return to the garage where they meet with Bo who tells them the story of the Sinclair's (the former owners of the wax museum) while they walk to his house. Apparently Dr. Victor Sinclair and his wife Trudy moved to Ambrose when Victor was fired for performing experimental procedures on patients. Once in Ambrose Trudy soon discovered a passion for sculpting wax figures but eventuallly fell ill. A depressed Victor then commited suicide, leaving the Sinclair children as orphans.
While Carly waits in the car outside of Bo's house, she discovers that the headlight of Bo's truck is broken. Realizing it must be the same truck that bothered them the night before she tries to warn Wade by blowing the car horn. However, as Wade is trying to leave, someone comes from below and cuts his Achilles tendon causing him to fall in pain. Wade is subsequently stabbed and knocked out. Revealing his true intentions Bo begins a wild chace for Carly which eventually ends in the church where Carly finds out that all the funeral guests she saw earlier are wax figures as well. She hides underneath the wax priest's robes but is eventually captured by Bo and imprisoned in the cellar of his gas station with her lips glued together. Bo's brother Vincent (the creepy man Carly saw outside the museum), meanwhile, starts to embalm Wade in wax.
Nick and Dalton soon arrive in Ambrose to look for their friends and upon encountering Bo, Nick asks him whether he has seen Carly or Wade. Carly hears Nick's voice and manages to rip her lips open and scream for help. Knocking Bo over, Nick rushes to the rescue and frees Carly. The siblings discover that the rest of Ambrose's population is dead, wax-preserved and displayed in a way to make it appear that the town actually had living residents. At the same time, Dalton is decapitated by Vincent when he enters the house of wax to look for Carly and Wade. Vincent then goes to the campsite where Paige and Blake are and kills them as well by stabbing Blake in the neck and impaling Paige on a metal pole.
Back in Ambrose, Carly and Nick are overhear a conversation between Bo and Vincent, who are of course the Sinclair children. It turns out that Vincent simply wanted to continue his mother's work of creating wax figures but Bo convinced him to start murdering people to make more realistic wax figures out of their victims. Carly also finds newspaper cuttings that report how Dr. Victor Sinclair seperated his siamese twin sons at birth, leaving one (Vincent) badly disfigured. Chased once more by Bo and Vincent they eventually end up in the wax museum where they see the high chairs first seen in the flashback. The one with the straps is marked Bo, the other Vincent, testifying to the fact the the badly disfigured Vincent is actually the normal one of the two brothers while Bo is the truly evil one. Ncik eventually start a fire in the house of wax and the whole house begins to melt. The demented brothers die in the fire, and Carly and Nick dig their way out to safety through the second-story wall. The smoke from the blaze eventually draws outside help. The siblings discover that the town had long ago been abandoned, and that it was no longer on any map. As the ambulance carries Carly and Nick away, the Sherriff learns that there were actually three Sinclair children. The film ends with a shot of the roadkill transporter petting Bo and Vincent's dog.
[edit] Box office
Opening in 3,111 theaters, the movie grossed $12 million in its first three days. Though most critics were not impressed, House of Wax earned $68,766,121 worldwide. 46.6% of that total came from domestic receipts. House of Wax also earned $42,000,000 in VHS/DVD rentals. [2]
[edit] Lawsuit
In January 2006 it was announced by Warner Roadshow studio owners Village Theme Park Management and Warner World Australia that they were suing special effects expert David Fletcher and Wax Productions because of a fire on the set during production.
The $7 million lawsuit alleges that the Mr. Fletcher and Wax Productions were grossly negligent over the fire which destroyed part of the Gold Coast's Warner Bros. Movie World studios. The alleged grounds of negligence included not having firefighters on stand-by and using timber props near a naked flame. The set where the fire broke out has now been demolished and a field kept for Movie World for future projects.
[edit] Awards and nominations
House of Wax won three out of the seven awards it was nominated for at the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, was nominated for one MTV Movie Award, and won one and was nominated for three Golden Raspberry Awards:[3]
| Group | Award | Won? |
|---|---|---|
| MTV Movie Awards (2006) | Best Frightened Performance Paris Hilton |
No |
| Golden Raspberry Awards (2006) | Worst Supporting Actress Paris Hilton[4] |
Yes |
| Worst Picture[5] | No | |
| Worst Remake or Sequel[6] | No | |
| Teen Choice Awards (2006) | Choice Movie Actor: Action/Adventure/Thriller Chad Michael Murray |
Yes |
| Choice Movie Scream Scene Paris Hilton Paige's scream when she's being chased by the killer. |
Yes | |
| Choice Movie: Thriller | Yes | |
| Choice Movie Actress: Action/Adventure/Thriller Elisha Cuthbert |
No | |
| Choice Movie Breakout Performance - Female Paris Hilton |
No | |
| Choice Movie Breakout Performance - Male Jared Padalecki |
No | |
| Choice Movie Rumble Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt |
No |
[edit] Main Cast
| Actor / Actress | Character |
|---|---|
| Elisha Cuthbert | Carly Jones |
| Chad Michael Murray | Nick Jones |
| Brian Van Holt | Bo Sinclair / Vincent Sinclair |
| Paris Hilton | Paige Edwards |
| Jared Padalecki | Wade |
| Jon Abrahams | Dalton Chapman |
| Robert Ri'chard | Blake |
| Damon Herriman | Roadkill Driver (3rd Sinclair Brother) |
[edit] Soundtrack
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b House of Wax (2005). Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2007-06-17.
- ^ House of Wax Box Office & Rental Numbers. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2007-06-17.
- ^ Awards for House of Wax (2005). Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ 26th Annual Golden Raspberry (Razzie©) Award "Winners". Golden Raspberry Awards. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ 26th Annual Razzie© Award Nominees for Worst Picture. Golden Raspberry Awards. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
- ^ 26th Annual Razzie© Award Nominees for Worst Remake Or Sequel. Golden Raspberry Awards. Retrieved on 2007-07-04.
[edit] External links
- Official website
- House of Wax at the Internet Movie Database
- House of Wax at Rotten Tomatoes
- House of Wax at Metacritic
- House of Wax at Box Office Mojo
- House of Wax Review
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