A group of friends stranded on the way to a football match approach an abandoned wax museum for help. But the events that unfold find them running from the murderous brothers who manage the place.

House of Wax is a film I've always loved. For horror fans, it delivers what its fans come for--gore, violence, a little sex and lots of wax. First-time director Jaume Collet-Serra lingers over the victims at lengths discomfortingly gratuitous even by slasher standards. It's scary, scream-and-squirm-inducing, and suspenseful, it's unequivocally good--and often downright great. Well-paced and, other than Hilton, capably acted, it also has a great sense of humour about itself.

Considering Paris Hilton was in it I was actually dreading this House of Wax. Some may wonder whether it bears any resemblance to the classic Vincent Price of the same name, other than the name it doesn't at all. I'd rather call it a re-imagining(and an inferior one at that) in alternative to a remake. And actually, despite it not being perfect and also my fears House of Wax was not that bad. It has its flaws, Paris Hilton not helped by her shallow character was awful, a few of the characters are less likable and developed well as others, the screenplay is rather cheesy at times and while Chad Michael Murray is handsome and does appeal to you I am not entirely sure whether he convinced me as the bad boy of the group. However, the rest of the acting is not bad at all, Elisha Cuthbert is actually very good and Brian Van Holt is downright scary as the antagonist. The characters are in a way stereotypical but they are written in a way that makes them generally somewhat likable. House of Wax is not bad to look at either, the camera technique used I am not a fan of but actually it is used effectively and there have been far worse cases of it, but the sets and lighting are wonderfully eerie. The story is on the formulaic side, but not dull or intelligence insulting. Other than Holt, what was impressive about House of Wax was the tense atmosphere, the imaginative and very gory deaths and also the fact that I did find myself amused or frightened throughout. Considering what House of Wax could have been, that is an achievement. All in all, not that bad, not perfect by any stretch but much worse things have happened. 6/10 Bethany Cox

HOUSE OF WAX is a serviceable remake of the 1953 Vincent Price classic, which takes a few elements and ideas from the original movie and reinvents them into a modern teen horror. If anything this film is flawed because it tries to do too much. The house of wax is there, but also present are a couple of hillbilly killers seemingly modelled on the anti-social likes of WRONG TURN along with the kind of torturous violence familiar from HOSTEL and others. Really, this is three films in one and each is vying for top place as the movie progresses.

Initially I didn't like this film at all. It takes way too long to get started, and half the film is over before anything really happens. The main characters are the usual bunch of obnoxious and/or uninteresting jerks that you can't wait to see get bumped off, and there's way too much lame humour surrounding Paris Hilton. Yes, I said Paris Hilton; apparently this film marks her acting debut. The surprise is that she isn't too bad in the role – at least no worse than the other cast members surrounding her. Of the cast, only Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray stand out – Murray because I thought he was FANTASTIC FOUR actor Chris Evans for a while, and Cuthbert because she's basically modelled on and copying Jessica Biel's character in THE Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake.

Eventually the film turns into a typical slasher, with the main characters (teens, twentysomethings, I care not) stalked by a pair of brothers. One's normal if insane, the other's a hulking, long-haired Jason type who wears a wax mask to hide his disfigured face (don't get too excited, the climatic unmasking scene isn't a patch on MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM's that was made seventy years before and still kicks this film's backside without even trying). Some quite extraordinary gruesome deaths unfold, typically involving body parts being lost or removed. Cuthbert is tortured in an obvious nod to HOSTEL and another character is covered in red hot wax. There are beheadings, impalings, stabbings, and a particularly unpleasant demise for Paris Hilton, and the emphasis seems to be firmly on showing as much pain and suffering as possible.

The film's climax is something I really did enjoy, thanks to the central conceit that the house of wax itself is made of wax. Therefore we have our protagonists trying to escape from a house literally melting around them while pursued by psychotic killers. It's a quite brilliant ten minutes of film, and a shame that the rest couldn't match this. Most of the blame falls on the novice director who doesn't seem to know what atmosphere is and on the poor editing which the film is full of. Still, for a run-of-the-mill horror it isn't bad and I'd watch that excellent ending again anytime.