WHO MADE IT? | Director: Jaume Collet-Serra Cast: Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Paris Hilton and Jared Padalecki | WHAT’S IT ABOUT? | A road trip to one of the biggest college football games of the year becomes the weekend from hell for six friends when they decide to camp out for the night before heading to the match. Next morning they find their car has been tampered with following a confrontation with a mysterious trucker at the camp site. To get it fixed Carly (Cuthbert) and her boyfriend Wade (Padalecki) accept an invitation from a local to go into Ambrose, the only town for miles. There they discover the town’s main attraction Judy’s House of Wax, now run by deadly Siamese twins, full of very lifelike wax figures. | WHAT’S IT LIKE? | Extraordinarily violent and gory with a high body count and enough chills to keep any ardent horror fan. This remake of the 1953 horror classic, starring Vincent Price, of the same name (that’s where the similarity ends) was much better than expected. An unpromising start with too much time spent on the friends’ dynamics. Once they reach Ambrose and the House of Wax it begins hotting up ending with one of the best finales to date (burning melting house) Elisha Cuthbert is feisty and sexy, having changed into a more revealing Die Hard style vest early on in the film. (One for the boys.) Chad Michael Murray is dark and moody as her hot headed twin brother. The downside Paris Hilton, in her debut role, doesn’t die soon enough and the replaying of Bette Davis’ What Ever Happened to Baby Jane at the local cinema, as a clever nod to the themes of intense sibling rivalry in House of Wax, will be lost on most of the target audience. It’s creepy and heart stopping and will have you hiding behind your popcorn. One of the best horror movies of the year. | HOUSE OF WAX opens on 27 May 2005
