House of Wax

Reviewed by:
Paul Ulane

As if Madame Tussauds' molding of Whoopi Goldberg isn't terrifying enough, House of Wax is here to show you an even darker side of life-sized candles. When a group of teens comprised of every high school stereotype—including the badass with an attitude (Chad Michael Murray), the hottie with a future (Elisha Cuthbert), and the airhead who looks like Paris Hilton (Paris Hilton)—gets stranded in Middle-of-Nowhere, Florida, their only help comes from a group of stereotypically execrable hicks in an uncharted ghost town. Strangely, this leads to more problems than solutions. As the teens meet their fate one grizzly murder at a time, it turns out the town is really run by a demented wax carver who looks like a cross between Leatherface and Marilyn Manson. The plot is more repetitive than a trip to the liquor store with mom, and its logic-starved victims make the original Friday the 13th's bait look like Harvard alums. Luckily, the movie's gory violence—head slicing, finger chopping, achilles clipping—spills enough blood to make the money shots in this Paris Hilton production a lot more rewarding than her last.

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