"Wax" works, somewhat

By Noel Vera

Jaume Collet-Serra's "House of Wax," a remake of Andre de Toth's
stylish horror classic starring Vincent Price, starts off on the
wrong foot by not having Price, not even a close analogue to his
character. Price's Professor Henry Jarrod was the human linchpin
upon which the 1953 film (itself a remake of Michael Curtiz's spare
and eerie "Mystery of the Wax Museum" (1933)) turned; it begins with
his story, and we watch with dismay as Jarrod's stubborn integrity
causes the museum to go up in flames. Years later a new museum
opens, and through the eyes of outside innocents we come to learn
the full, horrific consequences of that long-ago disaster: how fire
has distorted Jarrod's integrity, twisted it into a grotesque parody
of itself--the same way the museum and the process by which the
statues are created are really a parody of the artistic process.

De Toth's film was really an exploration into the relationship
between art, artist, and audience--how honest or dishonest an artist
can be about his work (ironically, through the use of more original
material than artists usually have access to), and how, perversely,
the audience may respond or fail to respond to that honesty. That
subtext, plus Price's memorable performance, lifts the film from the
realm of simple horror to something approaching tragedy--you root
for the villain at the center of it all to somehow come through all
right, the same time you keep hoping he'll be stopped, somehow.

Chad and Carey Hayes--whose previous writing experience is notable
mainly for the amount of TV they've done, including "Baywatch,"
and "Baywatch nights"--trashes all that, retaining a barely
recognizable outline of the original Charles Belden story; instead
this movie is the latest in a long line of reincarnations, official
and unofficial, of Tobe Hooper's 1974 "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"
(the list of titles include the rather hysterical Rob Zombie version
and a recent official remake), where a bunch of horny youths find
themselves waylaid in the middle of nowhere by a bunch of redneck
degenerates. The youths in this picture make all kind of dumb
mistakes and are barely characters; you might say the people in de
Toth's production--one of the earliest 3-D films ever made,
incidentally, a medium which de Toth (who had only one eye) not just
exploited brilliantly but transformed into another layer of subtext
(the wax figures seemed indistinguishable from the humans, and
there's a strong necrophilic undertone)--had more, ha-ha, depth to
them.

Paris Hilton is notable mainly for being Paris Hilton, which, if you
didn't know any better, isn't such a big deal. She does make fun of
her trashy persona, then strips down to a red bikini so we can ogle
for the price of a movie ticket a suggestion of what has been
readily and baldly available online (in action, at that) for free.
She gets to survive a little longer (I don't know if I'm spoiling
the story much--part of the movie's promo campaign includes t-shirts
that gleefully declare her upcoming demise) than most of the others,
show just a little physical resourcefulness, and is rewarded with a
suitably grisly end (let's just say yet another pole is violently
stuck into her face). The rest of the cast is barely memorable,
although Elisha Cuthbert as the picture's token Good Girl does look
fetching under all the grimy makeup.

If the picture is at all interesting, it's because the writers
actually had a few ideas in mind. There's the theme of siblings: a
pair of twins, in effect, confront a pair of twins for survival, one
pair suffering from an exploitative relationship, the other enjoying
a supportive one. Then there's the use of wax in all its material
states: from cold solid to warm softening to hot liquid to a fine
mist spray (that would improve, however painfully, your complexion
on a permanent basis--I suppose there's subtext here, about skin-
deep beauty). The movie has more of a feeling for the texture--for
the horror and beauty of having a sense of touch--than most American
horror flicks have.

It also has a not-quite-negligible visual style. The director,
Collet-Serra, a Basque who has previously done music videos and TV
work (this is his first feature) seems to know enough not to
overcut; even more impressive, he knows enough to take his time with
the story, allow it to start slow and to increase pressure and
tension accordingly, gradually. He knows that wax statues are of
themselves inherently creepy, and one only need linger on them to
start feeling perturbed (Why is the camera spending so much time on
this face? Will those eyes blink or not?). He also knows that the
long take is a far more effective means of creating tension than the
shock cut, and while he includes more than the necessary amount of
the latter (in my book even one "Boo!" scare is almost always one
too many), he does also make good use of the former. His soundtrack,
unfortunately, is terrible: your standard-issue loud rock score,
laid indiscriminately throughout, when simple silence could have
been far more powerful--Andre de Toth might have taught him a thing
or two about the economical use of music; for that matter, Michael
Curtiz in his 1933 version goes even further than de Toth in the use
of silence to draw out moments of suspense.

Collet-Serra might be able to do genuinely interesting work, if he
manages to find better material to work with--or, if he must do
remakes, do one that actually has ambitions of being superior to the
original somehow (Hilton running about in a red bikini is nice, but
not quite it). As is, he rates as one of the more skillful among his
fellow Americans--above Rob Zombie, and even Wes Craven, below
Victor Salva (who has a conviction for child molestation on his
record to help (fairly or unfairly, depending on your point of view)
bolster his--and the film's--reputation for creepiness). Which is a
lot like saying that one looms tall in a land of midgets.

(First published in Businessworld, 5/27/05)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)