HouseOfWax

I don't know what's going on with the current crop of horror... but the last few horror flicks released have been well above par.

Yes, Ring Two was derivitive slop, yes, Alone In The Dark qualifies as one of the worst films to ever get a theatrical release (Uwe Boll needs to go away), and, yes, Cursed just plain sucked - but The Amityville Horror was really good, Boogyman was suprising and different, and, admit it, White Noise made you jump.

(for those keeping score... Grudge (ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh), Saw, and Darkness (shelved for two years for good reason) all happened last year so we can pretend they don't count - and, before you jump down my throat, Saw only sucked because it didn't have enough plot to be feature length, I'm not knocking the indie)

House of Wax has the, rather trite, setup of a bunch of camping teenagers drinking exsessively, having premarital sex, and making lots of stupid decisions. You know the types of decisions I'm talking about - the 'this entire situation could have been avoided if they hadn't decided to break into someone's house, make a lot of noise, accidently break some stuff, and hide upstairs' decisions.

This isn't a "BOO!" flick where stuff jumps out at you. With House of Wax you know when stuff is coming. The thing this movie does really well is the violence. There aren't any catchy one-liners or over-the-top elaborite deaths (although Paris Hilton dies really good). This is an old school late 70s / early 80s slasher. The violence is presented in a straight-foward manner to emphasize it's brutality.

What does this mean for the audience... instead of laughing when someone loses a hand - you clutch your own as if it was threatened.

You know your horror film is doing something right when the viewer has sympathy pains.