![]() ![]() By that, I mean that we must be - and are - constantly concerned about directing audience attention where we want it.”Īctors Charles Bronson (far left) and Phyllis Kirk (foreground) are positioned for a take during the production. “Curiously enough, our main problem in 3-D filming is not so much mechanical as dramatic. The deformed face he designed for the monster (light blue scar tissue strikingly filigreed with purple veins) is enough to produce a lasting trauma in any sensitive soul, and would have made the late Lon Chaney at his collodion worst look like a collar ad. On the latter score, chief make-up artist Gordon Bau deserves special mention for creating the most horrible make-up ever seen in color. The only reported casualties, according to Warner’s publicity department, were the eyebrows and eyelashes of the leading man, neatly singed off by the flames, but just as neatly replaced by the make-up department. Controlled by a corps of expert pyrotechnicians and special effects men, the fire raged for five full days on a giant sound stage. Further horror is engendered by closeups of the all-too-lifelike waxen faces melting into scorched caricatures, glass eyes falling out of smoking sockets, etc.ĭuring shooting, this sequence provided one of the most violent pyrotechnic displays ever contrived by a Hollywood studio. This situation reaches its climax in a roaring inferno of three-dimensional flame which seems to sweep right out of the screen and engulf the audience. The most spectacular sequence in the picture, both dramatically and technically, is the fire that destroys the wax museum and its paraffin inhabitants. The sculptor, played by Vincent Price, in the midst of his tragedy. His detection and eventual destruction account for a bulk of the suspenseful action. Horribly disfigured in the resulting holocaust, and driven mad by his great loss, the sculptor becomes a monstrous murderer who stalks and kills people resembling historical figures so that he may dip their bodies in wax and place them on display. As Marley points out, 3-D photography (like any other good photographic process) exists not for its own sake, but solely to help tell a dramatic story in the most effective way possible.īriefly stated, House of Wax is the story of a sensitive sculptor whose wax museum is set afire by an unscrupulous partner to get the insurance money. ![]() In general, however, there is always a temptation to overuse effects of this sort. ![]() It is certain that the audience would have been disappointed had such jolting experiences not been included in a film of this type. I mean, why else cast so many popular faces of the time? So rather than explain details about the film - because what is the fun in that? - why not talk about those popular in their heyday actors are up to now? Thankfully a great many of them are still known to us today.Of course, there are sequences in which, for example, a rubber ball on an elastic string is batted repeatedly into the faces of the audience, a scene in which a wax head (neatly lopped off by a guillotine) comes tumbling right into the viewers’ laps, and still other instances in which miscellaneous objects are pitched out of the frame of the screen and into the theatre. This was a remake that really wanted to get its money's worth at the theaters. While I don't want to give too much away about this supremely fun film (aside from the fact that it will make you hate wax in a way you never thought was possible), I'll say this: It really upped the star power game of horror movies in general. ![]() Based off of the iconic 1950s film of the same name, House Of Wax follows a group of friends on their way to a football game who get stranded in a creepy town with a wax-faced, wax-obsessed killer. That film is the highly entertaining though not so critically acclaimed House Of Wax, which is now celebrating its 10th anniversary. So in 2005 when I heard a horror movie with Chad Michael Murray, Jared Padalecki, Elisha Cuthbert, and Paris freaking Hilton was coming out, I knew I had to see it. As a hardcore fan of the horror film genre, I make it a point to try and see as many horror films as possible. ![]()
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