Mystery of the Wax Museum and Remakes

Mystery of the Wax Museum

Director - Michael Curtiz (Doctor X)
Starring - Lionel Atwill (The Vampire Bat), Fay Wray (King Kong), and Glenda Farrell (Smart Blonde)
Release Date - 1933
Genre - Horror/Mystery
Tagline - "Wax or Flesh?" and "You'll never solve the "Mystery of the Wax Museum"

Rating (out of 5):

     Last Halloween I picked up the TCM Horror Classics four film set for $3 at the local Big Lots.  In the set there was Freaks, The Haunting, House of Wax, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  I forgot that I had it till a few weeks ago when I was rearranging my dvd collection.  I decided to give House of Wax a go because I had been watching a lot of Vincent Price flicks.  I never saw it before this viewing so while I was giving it a watch I decided to look some stuff up on it.  I was surprised when I found out it was actually a remake of this 1933 flick that was more of a mystery than a horror film.  After watching House of Wax I did some more research and found that this film, along with the '53 remake, was also parodied in another film, as well as, remade again in 2005.  I finally sat down and watched them all, except the parody, and wanted to make a post about them all and how much they differed.

     This film follows a sculptor that works primarily with wax.  He has done many sculptures consisting of historical figures, including his masterpiece Marie Antoinette.  However, his talent goes unnoticed by the local community in London and his partner pulls the plug on the museum.  As a way to get the money he had provided to the sculptor back, he decides to burn down the museum and collect the insurance money.  The sculptor does not agree with this because he sees his creations as living works of art.  The two battle it out before the sculptor is knocked unconscious.  The museum and all his creations are burnt to the ground.  The sculptor, now presumed dead, surfaces 12 years later in New York.  He is now wheelchair bound and his hands are severely burned to the point he can not longer form his wax sculptures.  He now has a team of sculptors who he has trained to make his sculptures along with a gentlemen who he has make him "special orders" and new renditions of his older works.  On New Years a young lady commits suicide and her body is stolen from the morgue.  A report, who is at risk of losing her job, must find a good story to report before she is left seeking a new career.  She starts looking into the missing body from the morgue.  She, also, just happens to be roommates with a young girl who is "courting" one of the wax sculptors at the museum.  One day while visiting the sculptor with her roommate she notices the Joan of Arc sculpture and realizes that she resembles that missing corpse.  While they are visiting the sculptor sees his workers girlfriend and she is the mirror image of his long lost masterpiece, Marie Antoinette.  The man who does special orders for the sculptor is instructed to bring her in but is detained by the police before hand.  The sculptor, wanting to have his Marie Antoinette back, gets out of his wheelchair and tries to abduct her.  In the process the young girl strikes his face and his wax masks shatters showing a charred face underneath.  The man that helps the sculptor with his special orders is an alcoholic, and while he is detained, starts having withdraws.  The police exploit this for information where he rolls on the sculptor and they are able to prevent the sculptor from turning her into his new wax sculpture.

     I actually really enjoyed this classic flick.  I typically don't like mysteries from this era but the horror element made this one really enjoyable.  Also, having watched the '53 remake before hand completely pulled the "mystery" from this one.  What I really liked about this one was the story.  For the time this one is really in depth when compared to the other classics like Dracula and Frankenstein.  The story actually has a twist that is pulled off very well and I honestly wish I knew that House of Wax was a remake so I could have watched this one first.  I also liked the effects  and acting in this one.  The effects are actually a little better than the remake.  Once the sculptor has his wax mask removed he looks better in this version than that of the remake.  What I did not like was the female roles.  Glenda Farrell's role does not fit the atmosphere of the movie at all.  She plays this wise cracking journalist and some of her dialogue does not really fit with the rest of the story.  Another thing I didn't really like is the pace of the movie.  The action is strung out between long streaks of pointless dialogue.  Which if this is the only complaints I can make for a film then it is doing something right even after all these years.  This one is definitely worth a watch.

House of Wax '53

Director - Andre de Toth (Dark Waters)

Starring - Vincent Price (House on Haunted Hill), Frank Lovejoy (The Hitch-hiker), and Carolyn Jones (War of the Worlds)

Release Date - 1953

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "You've never been scared till you've been scared in 3D"

Rating (out of 5):

     This is a classic horror film that I was not granted to opportunity of seeing in my youth.  I knew this film existed but I never had any intentions on watching this until I saw the four film set at Big Lots.  I figured for the cheap price I couldn't go wrong.  I am a huge Vincent Price fan and it was only a matter of time before I gave this classic film, and remake to Mystery of the Wax Museum, a shot.

     This flick, once again, follows a wax sculptor who is obsessed with his creations, especially his masterpiece Marie Antoinette.  Just like the original, his partner does not see profits being made from his house of wax.  After and intense fight, where the sculptor is once again knocked unconscious, the partner burns the house of wax down to claim the insurance money.  The sculptor, now presumed dead, emerges years later with a new house of wax that mostly exhibits ghastly historical events instead of the more joyful one.  His exhibits also consists of recent morbid events such as the hanging of his former partner.  The sculptor's hands are now severely burned and he is also wheelchair bound.  He has two assistants, a deaf-mute and a brilliant artist, that does his sculptures for him.  The sculptor has been kidnapping those that look similar to his original collections at night and encasing them in wax.  A colleague of his new partner is dating a girl the resembles his Marie Antoinette and he has to make her a wax figure.  This same lady's roommate was just abducted recently and the Joan of Arc exhibit resembles her greatly.  She begins snooping around trying to find clues about the Joan of Arc exhibit until the sculptor catches her.  While this is taking place the artist is being followed by the police and is brought in for questioning where they find a recently murdered man's pocket watch.  This man, also just like the original, is a raging alcoholic and makes a deal with the police to roll on the sculptor if they give him a drink.  While the sculptor is about to make the lady an immortal cased in wax, the police make a daring rescue.   

     I honestly kicked myself after watching this the first time for not watching this when I was little.  This movie is part of the first wave of "3D" films that are now almost symbolic of the cinema goers from the 50's.  I only wished I could have seen this movie in 3D because you can clearly see what they used for the gags in the film.  This movie stays true to the original for the most part.  The story is almost the same with very minor differences.  What I liked about this film was the atmosphere.  It was a little more darker in tone that the original.  It relied more on the horror aspect than the mystery.  I also liked the acting with Vincent Price giving one of the best performances I have seen so far out of his filmography.  What I didn't like was how the sculptor looked when he was not wearing his wax mask.  He did look more realistic over the original, however, the original looked way better.  Overall, this is a classic and deserves a watch.  Hell, multiple watches would do this film justice.

House of Wax '05

Director - Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan)

Starring - Elisha Cuthbert (The Girl Next Door), Chad Michael Murray (One Tree Hill), and Brian Van Holt (Sons of Anarchy)

Release Date - 2005

Genre - Horror

Tagline - "Prey. Slay. Display"

Rating (out of 5):

I never had any desire to watch this movie, however, I did want to buy it and add to my collection.  I know that sounds weird but I collect movies, mostly horror, and I sometimes buy shitty movies just to collect.  I'm also a huge Supernatural fan and since Jared Padalecki was in this I knew I would eventually see it.  However, once I started watching Mystery of the Wax Museum and House of Wax '53 I kinda got excited about it and went out and grabbed it on bluray...which was very cheap.  Should have been an omen.

    The film opens with a woman making a wax mask while her son is in his high chair eating.  Then the father enters the room carrying another child as he is kicking and screaming.  He then places him into another high chair and ties him down.  The film then picks up years later as a group of college students are traveling to see a football game.  Along the way the group decide to camp out and party it up.  However, the party is crashed by a guy in a truck as he pulls up and shines his lights on them for several minutes without speaking.  That is until the bad ass of the group busts the head light out with a beer bottle and he leaves.  The next morning the group pack up to head off to the big game when one of the cars has a busted fan belt.  The young man is in love with his car and refuses to leave it till after the game.  While the men are packing the cars, the ladies head out into the woods to piss and one of them falls down the hill and lands in a trench full of roadkill.  The men hear her screams and rush to her rescue.  While they are standing there the man that collects the roadkill arrives so the man whose fan belt is busted, along with his girlfriend, go with him into town to get a fan belt while her twin brother and the others go on to the game.  When the couple reach the garage they find it empty, much like everything else in town.  They visit the house of wax and then stop by a church where a "funeral service" is taking place.  The garage owner is at the service and takes them back to the garage but he doesn't have the belt they need.  The owner then takes them to his home where he keeps other parts.  While at the home the girl stays in the truck and the two men enter the house.  A few minutes later the owner returns and the girl locks herself in the truck before knocking it in gear and backing down the driveway.  She then runs to the garage and is grabbed by the owner and tied to a chair and her lips are super glued.  Her friends have turned around and came back due to the volume of traffic because of the game.  Her brother and his friend come looking for them and split up to find them quicker.  Another couple decide to stay back at the camp site to screw and are murdered by a long haired man wearing a wax mask.  The remainder of the flick is a game of cat and mouse between the owner and the two twins before it is revealed that the owner and the man with long hair are twins that were born conjoined.  The one with long hair was actually the good child at the beginning of the flick who was born with half his face conjoined to the back of the bad child's head.

     I honestly wanted to like this movie.  It had everything going for it and it only took pure talent to completely screw it up.  First off if it would have followed the original story, which it did not, it would have been an amazing flick.  The things I liked about the movie is the effects.  This movie has some of the best effects I have seen from any movie I can think of.  I was absolutely in aw when I saw it.  I am only speaking of the practical effects however.  The sad thing is that is the only thing I liked about this remake.  The things I disliked about it was the story.  The movie was way more creepier when the killer was actually tied to the victims like in the original and the '53 remake.  This remake made it a borderline slasher with no revenge plot.  I also hated most of the cast.  The film went down the shitter the second they casted Paris Hilton.  Also, it was strange watching the boy from Cousin Skeeter in a horror flick using foul language and screwing around with Paris Hilton.  The CGI is complete shit in this one.  I don't see how they went having such great practical effects and then jumped straight into shitty CGI.  Overall, the special effects and Sam Winchester could not save this behemoth size shit from sinking.  If you want to see some bad ass practical effects then this is your flick but that is the only reason to even consider this one.  Stay away!