House of Wax (1953) Review

"It's sort of a shock to see your head detached that way."

-Sue Allen

Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) is an extremely skilled wax sculptor, but all of his creations are destroyed when Jarrod's business partner, Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts), burns down his museum for the insurance money and Jarrod is seriously burned in the process.  Months later, people start being killed with their bodies later disappearing from the morgue, including Burke.  After her best friend is killed, Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk) becomes convinced that Jerrod is behind the crimes.  After all, he has just opened a new wax museum and one of the figures looks just like her friend...

What Works:

This film is a remake of the 1933 film, Mystery of the Wax Museum, which I liked, but it had some flaws.  This remake manages to fix most of them.  The original had some very strange editing decisions, but the remake does not and it feels like a real movie throughout the entire run-time.

When the wax sculptor of the original film takes us on a tour of his museum, it is incredibly boring, but that is fixed up immensely in this remake.  Jarrod's museum is focused on violent crimes, so the exhibits are much more interesting.  Most of them have nothing to do with the plot, but they add a sinister aspect to the setting, which I enjoyed.

The 3rd act is much more entertaining in the remake.  While it's the same ending story-wise, the way it is edited adds a lot of tension to the film.  We are more concerned that Sue might be killed by the hot wax than we ever are about anyone in the original.

Finally, Vincent Price is one of the greatest actors of all time.  I love the guy in everything he is in and he is perfectly cast as Jarrod.  He is menacing and charismatic.  His screen-presence is legendary.  I can't possibly give him enough praise.

What Sucks:

The opening sequence brawl in the burning wax museum is much more interesting to watch in the original. The original filmmakers were forced to get more creative with how they filmed the sequence and it's far more impressive than the remake, which was fine, but the visual style of the original looked amazing.

My favorite part of the original film was the protagonist, Florence, who was a really interesting character for the time period.  She was a reporter who drank and joked about sex with male characters.  Florence is completely cut of this movie.  Instead, we are stuck with Sue Allen, who is incredibly dull and not the least bit interesting.  She's just a generic female with no real character traits.

The biggest problem with House of Wax is it doesn't do enough to distinguish itself from the original.  It's almost the exact same movie with a different (boring) character as the protagonist.  If you're not going to do something different, why remake a movie?

Verdict:

House of Wax fixes most of the mistakes from the original film, but makes a few new ones as well.  It's technically superior, the tour of the wax museum is far more interesting, the 3rd act is more exciting, and Vincent Price is incredible.  Unfortunately, the opening sequences is a step down, the protagonist sucks, and the film doesn't do enough to differentiate itself from the original, but it's still worth watching and has certainly got it going on.

 7/10: Good