House of Wax (3D)

Three movies for the price of one!I bought this as it's the only current release of the 1953 version of the movie I could find. but it was pretty cheap. Getting the 2005 remake was a bonus, but thats actually a really good film as well. They don't bear any resemblance to each other plot wise apart from being broadly about a wax museum . The new version is gory and spectacular. Great effects. Don't worry about Paris Hilton being in it, she is fine. The set up for this movie includes a whole town of mysteries as well as just the museum, and the wax statue effects are great, really creepy.The 1953 version is far more restrained. Vincent Price plays a wax museum owner who loses his sculpting skill in a fire but thinks up another way to make wax statue . There's no scenes of real horror apart from some great shots of wax dummies on fire (always a winner), and eager performances from all involved. The film does suffer from tiresome inserts made for the 3D release, especially the bat-and-ball man, which most viewers will find irritating. Close up shots of can-can dancers with their skirts up kicking their legs might be more well received! The acting is pretty good. Vincent Price fans get treated to a good performance here, and Phyllis Kirk makes a good heroine.Surprisingly there is also a THIRD movie in this set, tucked away as an extra on the 1953 disc, it's the 1933 "Mystery of the Wax Museum" with Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray. `The 1953 "House of Wax' is an almost exact remake of this, so watching them both may result in a Groundhog Day-like experience. The older movie suffers from very faded colour, along with too many scenes where the wax statues are actually live people trying to stand still. The acting is pretty hammy in places, and there appears to be no musical score, so a lot of the time the film is lacking in the dramatic accenting that music would provide - especially at the climax. But it's the same plot as the 1953 film so take your pick.This is a treat for movie fans to experience Wax Museum Terror from three very different eras of cinema. All three movies have something to offer.

The House of Wax seems to have a history in my family. My late mother saw it as a young woman in Fiji in 3D and I saw it many years later in 3D at the BFI Southbank in London. I now have my own DVD copy at long last.It was re-made in 2005 but it is incomparable to this 1953 classic directed by Andre de Toth starring the grandmaster of horror, Vincent Price. The House of Wax 1953 is a re-make of the 1933 film, The Mystery of the Wax Museum and stars the legendary grandmaster of horror, Vincent Price in one of his iconic horror roles as Professor Henry Jarrod.Professor Henry Jarrod (Price) is distraught, depressed, saddened and horrifically facially disfigured after an arsonist destroys his beloved House of Wax Museum. He emerges with a vengeance opening a spectacular and magnificent new House of Wax Museum that becomes the talk of the town. However, the new wax figures are real life corpses .........Vincent Price is excellent as the evil, Professor Henry Jarrod. There is a screen appearance from Charles Bronson as Jarrod's assistant and partner in crime. Wax historical figures, boiling hot vats of wax, disappearing corpses, disfigured people, mayhem and murder. This is vintage Vincent Price.A true horror film classic.See it at your peril ...........

You get 2 films here. Now I am going to give you a warning, the original is much better than the new version. I found the newer version terrible. To be honest I found it was no where near as good as the original and the best with Vincent Price. Paris Hilton is to say the least rubbish in the newer version. The kids want to muck about and sex seems to be all they want to get up to. Lots of blood and gore. But don't take my word for it, buy and watch the original first. Then watch the newer version. PC. 15. 12. 2017.

Henry Jarrod is a very talented sculptor of wax figures for a museum. But as the museum starts to flounder, Jarrod's partner, Matthew Burke, insists on taking a new direction, a row ensues and Jarrod is knocked unconscious. Burke seizes the opportunity to torch the museum and get the insurance money, with Jarrod still in the premises. Thought long since dead, Jarrod resurfaces, apparently wheel chair bound and with horribly burned hands. Opening up a new museum, his new figures {made by his protégé under his instruction} look ever more lifelike than before, could he be responsible for some despicable crimes in the area?.This marvellous film is a remake of the 1933 chiller, The Mystery Of The Wax Museum, directed by Michael Curtiz. Here this film is taken on by Andre de Toth, originally filmed in 3-D with the then bonus addition of Warner Phonic Sound, it's a picture that thankfully holds up real well even in its basic flat format. The reason it does hold up well is because director de Toth didn't get carried away with the gimmick, it's used sparingly so the narrative never gets lost amongst any trickery, and thus House Of Wax's excellently creepy story comes to the fore.Having the ever supreme Vincent Price as your leading man {Jarrod} will always help your horror genre picture, here he two folds the performance brilliantly. At first his Jarrod is charming and carrying a grace about his dedication to his craft, but then, devilment takes control as Price pumps creepy ardour into Jarrod's fractured mind. Quite a turn from Price who most definitely suffered for his art during the shoot, forced to do his own stunts {the 3D process needs more than one camera}, he was involved in an accident that set him on fire and almost saw him crushed!. Then there was the long and often painful make up sessions to get the desired effects of a burns victim, layers of rubber strangling his skin to the point of passing out, oh yes Vincent earned his money on this one!.We even get one of the earliest credited performances from Charles Bronson {here under his real name of Buchinsky} as Jarrod's assistant Igor, whilst fans of The Addams Family TV series will no doubt enjoy the performance of future Mortica, Carolyn Jones. The film was a big success on its release, and hugely popular with critics, and it's not hard to see why, because today it still stands proud as one of the finest exponents of classic horror, both as a story and as a technical construction. 9/10