House of Wax

1953 stereovision extravaganza

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Poor Henry Jarrod. He's worked hard to put together his wax museum, lovingly constructing historical characters for patrons to admire. But a mean guy sets fire to the museum, leaving Jarrod inside for dead. Wax figures apparently can't survive a fire, and all seems lost until Jarrod resurrects and reopens his business with a macabre twist.

I gave this the Vincent Price bonus and a separate bonus because I wasn't watching it with my 3D glasses and probably missed a lot of the brilliance. House of Wax is historically important as one of the first 3D films. I'm not sure the gimmick was used effectively. There's a scene with dancers' legs that I imagine would have looked like they were extending over theater-goers' heads, and a lot of pointless time spent with a top-hatted dude with three paddleballs. That's right--paddleballs. The scene with the burning wax museum looked a little odd, splotchy fires and wax sculptures melting like the bad guys at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and I wonder if maybe there was some 3D action going on there. Speaking of that scene--the makers of this film missed a golden opportunity to have a little dark humor in this. There was a wax Joan of Arc, and Vincent Price's partner didn't set fire to that one first? What were they thinking? The wax figures, especially the ones at the end of the movie, were cool, and I liked watching a shadowy Vincent Price Darkmanesquely lurking in dark alleys or stalking his victims. This was a remake of 1933's Mystery of the Wax Museum which I plan on watching eventually despite the lack of 3D effects.