Tuesday, May 5, 2009

House Of Wax (1953)

4 / 5
Tagline: Unlike anything you've seen before!
Directed by: Andre De Toth
Written by: Charles Belden, Crane Wilbur
Actors include: Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Carolyn Jones
Genre: Horror
Length: 90 minutes
Banned: Nope
Country: USA

Review:
Firstly regardless of the movie he's in Vincent Price is nearly always an absolute treat to watch and this is no exception. He plays a gifted wax sculpture who's partner wants out of his half of the business deal. Well he won't wait for a buy out so he lights poor Vincent's beautiful creations on fire, and we are to assume Vincent dies in the fire too. Of course this isn't so or the movie would be over, but it's fantastically entertaining watching the grotesque statues slowly melt in a creepy ugly way. I understand why it may have upset theatre goers, even though the statues clearly aren't real some of the melted imagery will never escape my head. So anyhow a very burnt Vincent turns up wanting to open a new museum hiding behind a wax face. The only thing is his hands were so badly burned that he can't sculpt anymore, he insists that he is directing his helpers (watch for a young Charles Bronson as Igor) in making the new sculptures. Also he's changed his motif to be scenes of current horror, so someone turns up dead, presto there is a statue of them kinda thing. Well of course there is some revenge going on here and Vincent isn't quite behaving the way he's letting on. It's actually a very cool and garish movie, it's just a little dull in the middle, but at least the beginning is fantastic, and the ending is decent too. Not one of the best ever but certainly a neat little film worthy of at least a watch or two.

No comments:

Post a Comment