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House of Wax (2005 film)

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House of Wax
Directed byJaume Collet-Serra
Written byCharles Belden
Chad Hayes
Carey Hayes
Produced byJoel Silver
Robert Zemeckis
Susan Levin
StarringElisha Cuthbert
Chad Michael Murray
Brian Van Holt
Paris Hilton
Jared Padalecki
Robert Ri'chard
Jon Abrahams
Andy Anderson
Damon Herriman
CinematographyStephen Windon
Edited byJoel Negron
Music byJohn Ottman
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
Village Roadshow Pictures
Release dates
  • April 30, 2005 (2005-04-30) (Tribeca)
  • May 6, 2005 (2005-05-06) (United States)
  • July 14, 2005 (2005-07-14) (Australia)
Running time
105 minutes [1]
CountriesTemplate:Film US
Template:Film Australia
LanguageEnglish
Budget$40 million[2]
Box office$70,064,800[2]

House of Wax (also titled Wax House, Baby) is a 2005 horror film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra. Though not a remake itself, it shares the name of a 1953 horror film, which was a remake of the 1933 film Mystery of the Wax Museum.[3] It was released in theaters on May 6, 2005 to negative reviews, but a financial success. On October 25, 2005, the film came out on DVD and on Blu-ray on September 26, 2006.

Plot

In 1974, a woman is making a wax sculpture in the kitchen while her son eats breakfast in his highchair. Her husband enters with another son who is shouting and kicking. The boy is forced into a highchair and strapped in place by his father. After being strapped and taped to his chair, he scratches his mother's hand. She then slaps her child across the face.

In 2005, Carly (Elisha Cuthbert) and her boyfriend Wade (Jared Padalecki) with her friend Paige (Paris Hilton) and Paige's boyfriend Blake (Robert Richard) are on their way to a highly anticipated football game in Louisiana. Eventually, Carly's older delinquent brother, Nick (Chad Michael Murray) and his friend Dalton (Jon Abrahams) also join them. Night falls and the group decides to set up camp for the night. Carly and Wade, Paige and Blake was made up, but Nick jokingly said to Dalton that he wouldn't kiss him and make love. The campsite is later visited by a stranger in a pickup truck who shines his lights at the campsite, but refuses to leave or address them until Nick smashes a headlight with a bottle. The next morning, Carly and Paige go exploring, Carly falls down a hill and lands in deer remains and sees a fake hand. One of the cars fan belts is found to be damaged. The group meets a disheveled, rural man named Lester (Damon Herriman), who offers to drive Carly and Wade to the nearby town of Ambrose to get a new fan belt, while the rest of them go to the football game.

The two arrive at Ambrose, which is virtually a ghost town. Unable to find an attendant at the auto mechanics shop, they wander into the church, disrupting a funeral. There, they meet a mechanic named Bo (Brian Van Holt), who offers to sell them a fan belt after the funeral. While waiting for the services to end, Carly and Wade visit the wax museum, which itself is made of wax and is the central feature of the town. Afterward, they follow Bo to his house to find a proper fan belt. While there, Wade is crippled and stabbed by Vincent (also played by Brian Van Holt) and Bo grabs Carly, super glues her lips shut and locks her in a cellar. Dalton and Nick arrive in Ambrose to look for Carly and Wade; Vincent meanwhile strips and shaves Wade and then puts him in a chair and puts a metal contraption on his head which has metal pipes sticking into him and pins that keeps his eyes open. Vincent pulls a couple of leavers which sends boiling wax that goes through the pipes and shower nozzles which boils Wade in hot wax.

While Nick questions Bo if he has seen his sister, Carly tries signaling for help by sticking her finger out of a vent, trying to get her brother's attention. Bo notices her finger sticking out and leans down by the vent while still talking to Nick and snips the tip of her finger off. Carly falls screaming in pain and later pries her lips open in order to scream for help. Nick, hearing her screams, knocks Bo out after he attacks him. Nick locks Bo out of the station and finds his sister and the two escape. Dalton finds Wade who is alive but he is unable to move or talk because he is immobilized by a layer of wax covering his body. Dalton peels off the wax but realizes he is peeling Wade's skin off. Vincent finds Dalton and accidentally slashes Wade's face with a powersaw. Wade dies from shock. Vincent later chases and decapitates Dalton, killing him. Meanwhile, Nick and Carly realize that the wax figures are actually real people - Bo and Vincent have been trapping people in wax in order for the figures to look more realistic.

Vincent goes to their camp site and kills Blake and chases Paige to an abandoned sugar mill. After being stabbed in the foot, Paige hides in a car but Vincent finds her but she impales him in the cheek with a spear and flees. Paige hides behind a car but Vincent throws a spear through the windows of the car which impales her forehead, killing her instantly. Carly and Nick overhear Bo and Vincent talking and discovers that they were conjoined twins. Bo and Vincent find and chase Carly and Nick to the House of Wax. Nick and Carly unintentionally set the House of Wax on fire. As this is occurring, the wax figures start to melt, as does the whole house. Carly beats Bo to death with a baseball bat, which enrages Vincent. Vincent chases Nick and Carly on to the balcony but Carly and Nick stab Vincent in the hip, thus killing him. As the House of Wax melts from the fire, the room in which all three are in collapses, causing Vincent to land on Bo's corpse. Nick and Carly escape the fiery House of Wax and breathlessly watch as it melts to the ground.

The ambulance and police arrive at daybreak, reporting that Ambrose has been abandoned for ten years when the local sugar mill failed. The policeman (Andy Anderson) reveals that there was a third son of Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair who happens to be Lester. Nick and Carly are then taken to hospital. From inside the ambulance, Carly thought she saw something/someone, so she turns around and looks out through the window, to then see Lester looking and smiling at her.

Alternate opening

There is an alternate opening featured the Special Features menu on the DVD: A young woman, Jennifer (Emma Lung), (the woman who is sculpted into Miss Ambrose) is stranded on the road after her car breaks down. As she calls a towing company, Bo's truck drives up. She tries to signal him, but gets no response. Then, the truck speeds up. Jennifer tries to run, but Bo grabs her by the neck and throws her face-first into her windshield, instantly killing her. [citation needed]

Cast

For more information check List of House Of Wax characters

Lawsuit

In January 2006, it was announced by Warner Roadshow studio owners Village Theme Park Management and Warner Brothers Movie 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.[4]

Release

Box office

Opening in 3,111 theaters, the film grossed $12 million in its first three days. Though most critics did not recommend the film, many of them acknowledged that it was well made and/or better than other recent similar films. House of Wax earned $70,064,800 worldwide. 46.6% of that total came from domestic receipts. House of Wax also earned $42,000,000 in VHS/DVD rentals.[5]

Soundtrack

Untitled

House of Wax: Music from the Motion Picture is the title of a publicly released soundtrack used for House of Wax, comprising of commercially recorded songs.[6] A second album, titled House of Wax was released containing the film score, composed by John Ottman.[7]

Track listing

Commercial soundtrack
  1. "Spitfire" - The Prodigy
  2. "I Never Told You What I Do For A Living" - My Chemical Romance
  3. "Minerva" - Deftones
  4. "Gun in Hand" - Stutterfly
  5. "Prayer" - Disturbed
  6. "Path to Prevail" - Bloodsimple
  7. "Dried Up, Tied and Dead to the World" - Marilyn Manson
  8. "Dirt" - The Stooges
  9. "Not That Social" - The Von Bondies
  10. "Cut Me Up" - Har Mar Superstar
  11. "New Dawn Fades" - Joy Division
  12. "Taking Me Alive" - Dark New Day
Orchestral score soundtrack
  1. "Opening/Tantrum"
  2. "Ritual/Escape the Church"
  3. "Story of the Town"
  4. "Up in Flames"
  5. "They Look So Real"
  6. "Sealed Lips"
  7. "Brotherly Love"
  8. "Hanging with Baby Jane"
  9. "Paris Gets It"
  10. "Curiosity Kills"
  11. "Bringing Down the House"
  12. "Three Sons"
  13. "Endless Service"

References

  1. ^ "Metacritic entry on House of Wax (2005)". Metacritic. Retrieved 2010-06-25.
  2. ^ a b "House of Wax (2005)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  3. ^ CineAction, 68th issue, 2006, page 8. "Joel Silver remarks 'So, we had gotten the clearance for the name "House of Wax", which had been the title of a previous film released in the 1950s. We were getting ready to finish work on advertising when someone said “stop, we can't call it that.” I thought I had missed a meeting, or that the licensing office had made an error. In actuality, the crewmember didn’t know we had clearance for the name, and had been an avid fan of the original “House of Wax”. [...] We finished production on the posters and commercials and billboards that read "Wax House, Baby" when we found out we had the proper naming rights, so we had to start over again.'"
  4. ^ "House of Wax burns down Warner Bros sound stages". Joblo. Retrieved 2010-04-08.
  5. ^ "House of Wax Box Office & Rental Numbers". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 2007-06-05. Retrieved 2007-06-17.
  6. ^ "House of Wax commercial soundtrack". Soundtrackinfo. Retrieved 2010-06-29.
  7. ^ "House of Wax orchestral score soundtrack". Soundtrackinfo. Retrieved 2010-06-29.
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