HOUSE OF WAX (1953) Four stars
I’m a big fan of the late, great St. Louis born Vincent Price (1911-93).
Like most people from my generation, I first discovered Price through his voice work on Michael Jackson’s mega-hit “Thriller.”
Over time, of course, I began to encounter more and more of his work and I became more and more of a fan.
A couple of my favorites include his narration on Alice Cooper’s “Black Widow” from the 1975 Cooper album “Welcome to My Nightmare” (AC’s first solo LP) and THEATER OF BLOOD (1973).
“Black Widow” foreshadowed Price’s work on “Thriller.”
THEATER OF BLOOD lets Price sink his teeth into a juicy role and plot scenario — an irate Shakespearean actor who takes ultimate revenge on all his critics. It’s a lot of fun.
Several movies have taken cheap shots at critics over the years — for example, GODZILLA ’98 gave us the buffoonish Mayor Ebert and his aide Gene and LADY IN THE WATER (2006) knocked off that pretentious killjoy Harry Farber, a no-count film and book critic — but THEATER OF BLOOD gets it just right, unlike both GODZILLA and LADY IN THE WATER.
In the case of GODZILLA, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin didn’t even have the guts to have their Godzilla devour their Siskel & Ebert parodies. Chicken shits. I mean, were they holding out hope their film might still get a positive review? You know it’s bad when M. Night had more balls than you.
Anyway, in the spirit of a Camper Van Beethoven song, I have to ask ‘Where the hell am I?’
Oh yeah, Vincent Price and his incredibly entertaining HOUSE OF WAX, a remake of the 1933 horror film MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM.
By the way, Warner Bros. packaged together the 1933 with the 1953 film on a DVD and it’s not every day that you get two good movies for the price of one.
Now, I can add HOUSE OF WAX to the Price favorites list.
Price stars as Prof. Henry Jarrod, who’s absolutely committed to his wax museum. They’re not just wax figures to him. After all, they are extremely lifelike — a fine art — and he sums up the essence of his art with this dialogue, “Once in his lifetime, every artist feels the hand of God, and creates something that comes alive.”
Jarrod especially loves his Marie Antoinette, “Everything I ever loved has been taken away from me, but not you, my Marie Antoinette, for I will give you eternal life.” (Just pretend using Price’s voice while reading the dialogue.)
Jarrod thinks first and foremost in artistic terms, whereas his business partner Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts) hatches a devious scheme. If they set the wax museum ablaze, they can collect the $25,000 insurance policy and split it straight down the middle. Jarrod cannot believe his ears, for he loves his wax museum and his creations too much to see them destroyed for money.
Burke and Jarrod fight it out, with Burke ultimately winning the upper hand and burning down the wax museum with Jarrod inside. Burke believes Jarrod died … of course, Jarrod survives, enacts his revenge, and starts his wax museum all over bigger and better.
File the wax figures burning under “Great Movie Scenes.”
In early September 1988, a fire claimed the lives of 300 wax figures from the Southwestern Historical Wax Museum in Grand Prairie, Texas.
Lost were figures of Elvis, JFK, Robert Redford, and Paul Newman.
“One of the things that has made this fire so difficult to fight was the fact these figures are just like a candle,” Lt. Doug Conner said. “They generate tremendous heat. It appears it’s totally destroyed.”
The burning down of the wax museum certainly proves to be a great opener for HOUSE OF WAX.
HOUSE OF WAX came in the wake of the first 3-D feature, BWANA DEVIL (1952), and it gives us one of the best 3-D scenes I have ever seen. This scene comes right after intermission.
We have a barker for Jarrod’s new wax museum known as the House of Wax. We all know barkers, right, are people who “attempt to attract patrons to entertainment events, such as a circus or fair, by exhorting passing members of the public, announcing attractions of show, and emphasizing variety, novelty, beauty, or some other enticing feature of the show.”
Our barker seems to be an elite paddle ball player and he breaks the fourth wall, as he directly addresses the audience and hits the paddle ball toward us.
“Well, there’s someone with a bag of popcorn. Close your mouth, it’s the bag I’m aiming at, not your tonsils.”
This is better than anything in JAWS or AMITYVILLE 3-D.
There’s more choice moments in HOUSE OF WAX, and it’s essential viewing for Price fans.
Five must-see Vincent Price films:
— HOUSE OF WAX (1953)
— THE FLY (1958)
— HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959)
— THEATER OF BLOOD (1973)
— VINCENT (1982)
Attack of the Killer Librarian 