House of Wax — Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — movie reviews

by Chris   ⋅   May 10, 2005   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

CAN FISHER PRICE MAN SAVE THE WORLD?
You can probably read any number of Hitchhiker’s reviews out there so I will suffice it to say we thought the film started out strong, but really began to drag toward the middle and, sadly, such dragging lasted throughout the rest of the film. The excepts from the guide were hilarious, but the story between lacked any real suspense. It was fun to see the “Fisher Price Man” from The Office in the role of Arthur Dent, but not fun enough to last 90+ minutes. The only actor that kept me truly interested throughout was Mos Def as Ford Prefect. The creature effects by Jim Henson’s workshop were excellent, however, as they had a wonderful reality about them…unlike the cg creations of the past two Star Wars films (I’ll reserve judgment on Episode III till next week.)

Great books…but, just an okay movie.

On the other hand, House of Wax was an above-average horror film, and held my interest the entire time.

The film itself has almost no resemblance to the original Vincent Price HoW, but neither did Thir13en Ghosts or House On Haunted Hill. The plot at first glance is fairly cliche ridden; a band of kids on a camping trip in god-knows-where Louisiana experience car trouble on the way to their destination and happen into a heap of trouble. But there are quite a few clever plot elements throughout the story, that help raise it above your average body count film. Regarding the actors, Elisha Cuthbert does a pretty good job as the film’s main girl, Brian Van Holt does an equally good job as the flimi’s baddie, and, yes, Paris Hilton does put up a surprisingly good fight before receiving a fairly graphic, and applause worthy death.

Granted, a few things really didn’t make sense. For example, how would a building made entirely out of wax stay so rigid and so firm through 40+ years of Louisiana summers? But said building lends itself to some very cool action sequences, so I can’t really complain.

While definitely not the best of Dark Castle’s films so far, the film was well shot, the pacing swift, and the death scenes surprisingly wince inducing, even for Kris and I.

If I had to choose between which two to drop $9.50 on, I’d choose the House of Wax.

^ Paris Hilton ^

About the Author:

Chris Nelson has been an avid film fan since the age of six. His all-time splatter favorites (”samurai” and otherwise) include Lady Snowblood, Evil Dead 2, Re-Animator and Razorback.

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