House of Wax – B-Movie or Hidden Gem?

If you happen to frequent the slasher corner of Tumblr you’ll find a superhero-esque line up of killers generally featured together. And the one that is not included in line-ups outside of Tumblr is Vincent Sinclair (and, to a lesser extent, his brother, Bo, both played by Brian Van Holt) from House of Wax (2005). House of Wax follows a group of teenagers stuck in the middle of nowhere trying to restart their car. They find a quiet town willing to help – or so it would seem. There’s something very wrong in the town and the wax museum is at the centre of it all. The teenagers are, for the most part, the stereotypes listed in Cabin in the Woods and don’t bring much more to the roles. Though this is only unbearable as it is in any other teen slasher, such as Scream or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There is a badass final girl in Carly (Elisha Cuthbert), who fights back with everything she has, and has, however thinly explored, an internal struggle to overcome when it comes to her twin brother. The drama is – passable – and is at least trying to give something more to the plot than a madman in a mask. And our madman in a mask happens to be a twin himself. The movie does shoe-horn the idea of ‘evil’ and ‘good’ twins as much as possible, with some blindingly obvious symbolism. It’s clunky, but the intention is still there. It at least tries to twist the idea on its head, by having the conventionally attractive twin be the worst of the two, whilst the twin the film wants to add to the iconic line-up is simply misunderstood. This, at least, gives him an interesting backstory, even if there's no personality. (Though this is typical of the 'silent slashers'.) And of course, misunderstood means fan girls. He does still kill, of course. And in an incredibly unique way that leads to some toe-curling scenes. Vincent Sinclair is an 'artist' and a kill like that could compete with some of the iconic slasher villains. Unfortunately, he's only really given the one, before he stomps around like a longer haired Michael Myers, stabbing everything in sight with whatever sharp weapon is close to hand. It leaves us with a discordant villain, as though the filmmakers only had one idea for a good kill and then decided to phone the rest in. It buries a good idea and makes the question of who the monster is redundant - at the end of the day, both twins are murderers. (And though the end scene is certainly some kind of twist, it's hardly a 'killer returns for one more scare kind of twist.') The wax museum, and the secret it reveals, is a great backdrop and provides some spine-tingling atmospheric horror. The rest of the town plays into this, but it’s a shame we waste so much time with Bo that we don't get to explore it more. The figures everywhere and the reveal of them could be played into more deeply with hints that these were once real people. This isn't helped by the needless extra two teens being included just to bolster up Vincent's kill count. They're not terrible characters, but you could replace them with any two randoms who've wandered too close to the town, and get the same effect. It's distractions like these that leave the film feeling loose. That screen time would have been more compelling if we got a few more slithers into the Sinclair's childhood. The glimpses we get into it are intriguing and leave a lot of scope for more. They were probably leaving that for a sequel. Unfortunately, they never got one. Overall, House of Wax is a pretty by the numbers slasher, but it does have some creative ideas and cool scenes playing with its concepts that make it worth a watch. Given the amount of fans Vincent Sinclair has online, I'd argue for its place alongside the classic slashers.