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House of Wax
Warner Bros.


5.0

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 58 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for horror violence, some sexual content and language

Starring Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Paris Hilton, Jared Padalecki, Jon Abrahams, Robert Ri'chard, and Dragicia Debert

What begins as a weekend getaway for six friends becomes a terrifying fight for their lives in House of Wax, an exciting re-imagining of the 1953 horror classic. (Warner Bros.)

GENRE(S):	Horror \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Chad Hayes Carey Hayes Charles Belden (story)
DIRECTED BY:	Jaume Serra
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 25, 2005 Theatrical: May 6, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	105 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Australia / USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

This movie gives it to you, as no movie has in some years. Okay, if that's not your part of the swamp, don't go into it.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

After a month, no one will talk about this movie, ever again. Still, with a picture like this, there's really only one question: Is it any fun? Yes. Lots. Definitely.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

As a frightfest it's better than today's average.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

House of Wax won't give you nightmares, but it upholds teen horror traditions with flair and energy.

Philadelphia Inquirer David Hiltbrand

A sturdy and cohesive representative of what tends to be a flimsy and tawdry B-movie genre. It even has a moral: People who live in wax houses shouldn't start fires.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Formulaic but fairly well-done.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Sadly, director Jaume Serra has taken the Gothic premise of a madman casting his living victims in wax and, no doubt at the behest of copycat-hungry producers, turned House of Wax into yet another teens-versus-hillbillies slasher flick

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The original was shot in 3-D; this, by contrast, is 1-D all the way.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Like too many horror movies these days, House of Wax goes for scares, but settles for being gory and deeply unpleasant.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Works best when it sticks to some of the tenets of successful horror; namely, gore and surprise.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

House of Wax is not a good movie but it is an efficient one, and will deliver most of what anyone attending House of Wax could reasonably expect, assuming it would be unreasonable to expect very much.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

It's a good thing Jaume Serra's House of Wax wasn't shot in 3-D like the original 1953 horror classic - Paris Hilton is in it and she doesn't have a third dimension.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Treats us to some feverish decapitating, juicy stabbing and non-anesthetized fingertip removal.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The set design is fairly elaborate by the standards of the genre, and the victims don't die in precisely the order you might expect, but everything else goes pretty much according to formula, including a last-minute plot twist that opens the creaky door to a sequel.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The problem is that the writing is too weak for me to come close to recommending it.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Acting is similarly routine with the glorious exception of Hilton, who is so bad she steals the show.

Village Voice Benjamin Strong

Only a nominal remake...Nevertheless, for gore aficionados (and probably no one else) the murders are worth the wait.

Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirschling

Except for when Paris is on screen giving us the winking sex eye, Wax is just a museum of gory, joyless, easy shocks.

Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder

Gratuitous gore and young, nubile flesh bind together a cardboard plot.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

Boring.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

Manages to be gruesome and grisly, but not particularly creepy or frightening.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Expect lots of Slasher Movie 101.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufmann

This is slash and burn strictly by the numbers. There's never an ounce of doubt where the movie's going; the only suspense is how long it's going to take to get there and how high the body count is going to get.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It delivers some bracingly nasty gore scenes, but there's no spark left in the run-scream-repeat formula, and a movie whose biggest draw is profoundly untalented hotel-fortune heiress Paris Hilton is in desperate need of some juice.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Paris Hilton is the big draw in Jaume Collet-Serra's not-really-a-remake horror-slasher thriller House of Wax, and she'd have to be: There's so little else going on in it that you find yourself waiting for her few brief scenes.

Slate David Edelstein

Isn't bad as these things go, although these things go nowhere a healthy individual should want to. Having never claimed to be a healthy individual, I found it tolerable.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

For Hilton haters, the stupid and grotesque remake of House of Wax will only stoke their schadenfreude.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

You'll be rooting for these people to get slaughtered out of sheer boredom.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust

Related to the 1953 Vincent Price film in name, embalming technique and Warner Bros. pedigree only, the new House of Wax is a dreary, predictable tale.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

Overlong, unscary, poorly paced and banally written.

USA Today Mike Clark

When the cast starts wondering where the roadkill is, someone says, "Follow the smell." Good tip: That's how you'll know where Wax is playing.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Weak, obligatory stabs at humor make it more generic than it might've been.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Purists, be warned: This scare-flick quickie has as much relation to the 1953 Vincent Price classic with the same title as Paris Hilton does to acting.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

A sadistically bland entertainment that oversells its reveals and lets its suspense drip so long that it would be nice if something (anything!) happened.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Barf-bag baroque.

Variety Scott Foundas

Direly predictable, with candle-drip pacing and a pervasive unpleasantness.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 58 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Steve S. gave it a3:
Not scary and dull. I kept pausing it and walking away.

Andrew B. gave it a1:
HORRIBLE MOVIE! I never seen the original but this movie is bad, just the main point in travel, they left to go to the super bowl which they didn't even have tickets to and if they scalpt tickets they would be REALLY expensive. but they make it far enough to a town they never heard of before(well two of them do) and the others go on even farther to the super bowl and then deside to turn around and go back after being stuck in trafic on a highway which there is no turn around while people in the back seat are sayin "TURN AROUND, LETS GO BACK!" STUPID!!! so they do turn back, retarded. and the other part i remember is when those 2 first go into the wax house and then she see's something outside in the window looking in and gets freaked out, and he goes outside to see what/who it was, it's a free country, people can be outside, and besides that whoever it was, they were just looking in the window, no actually walking into the place and touchin and metting a little wax. and she stays INSIDE the wax house while he goes outside to see what it was outside, f-ing stupid.

Jim S. gave it a3:
I expected this movie to follow in the footsteps of the orignal classic House Of Wax. Totally disappointed with screenplay and artwork.

Wally S. gave it a6:
The remakes just keep getting worst, and here it achieves the unnatural gift of beeing stupid and dreadfull, the teens have no skill, and even though the art direction is excellent, everything else is trash.

Andy W. gave it a10:
[***SPOILERS***] This is probably one of the best movies of 05. just because....a)elisha cuthbert lives, she's a babe b)paris hilton gets absolutely owned in the middle of the movie c)tons of guts and gore and d)the plot was very effective because it practically had me on the edge of my seat, wondering what was going to happen. if any of those reasons were not sufficient in this movie, i would've pulled out my hair at it. this for once, was actually a pretty scary movie.

Denis C gave it an8:
Very efficient, scary at some parts, love the special effects of certain shots. I recommend this movie for those who love to be seated on the edge of their seats. Don't drink and watch, you will spill your drink in a matter of time!!

tracy i. gave it a9:
Great film.

House of Wax Warner Bros.

House of Wax
Warner Bros.