Museu de Cera

I love Vincent Price, my all time favourite horror actor. 'House Of Wax' is an important movie in his career, because it was his first legitimate horror film, after thirty something pictures in a variety of genres. This really is where the Price persona fans know and love began. He made non-horror pictures after this, it was a few years later that he made 'The Fly' and the William Castle movies which made him a horror star, something cemented later in the 60s with Roger Corman's Poe movies. But you can see Vincent Price horror icon right here. He's terrific as Jarrod and he would draw upon this role for 'The Mad Magician', and later, the Phibes movies and 'Theatre Of Blood'. 'House Of Wax' is a remake of 'Mystery Of The Wax Museum' made twenty years earlier. In that one Lionel Atwill played the Price role (different name, but same character). Atwill was great but Price is even better, as is the movie overall. 'House Of Wax' sticks pretty much to the earlier movie, but with a few changes, most notably the absence of the girl reporter character that Fay Wray played in the original. In this, the policeman played by Frank Lovejoy ('In A Lonely Place') takes on a similar role. Phyllis Kirk is good as the female lead, better in my opinion than Glenda Farrell in the earlier picture. The supporting cast also includes Carolyn "Morticia Addams" Jones, and an early appearance by Charles Bronson, who plays a deaf mute named Igor. 'House Of Wax' was made specifically for 3D, so there's a few gimmicky shots, but that doesn't spoil the movie, which to me is a horror classic that every fan of the genre should see.

My great uncle was in this movie, being the barker. Watch this movie and get out of the way of his ''tricks''. His name was Reggie Rymal. I'm Larry...

My uncle was an entertainer and comedian in the early 1950s and was well known for his paddle-ball skills. He performed standup comedy and paddle-ball at hotels around the country. He appeared on many television shows during the early days of TV including "The Eddie Cantor Show, You Asked For It, and Ladies Choice.

I have always felt he was chosen for this movie due to the contribution in content for the 3-D effects. He was simply an amazing guy.

The House of Wax is a true horror classic! I saw it for the first time in 1953 at a local theatre in 3-D.

I have seen it many times since on video. It never ceases to entertain.

While watching it today I noticed something for the very first time: a most interesting anachronism.

This film takes place in old New York circa 1900. Every indoor scene has a gaslight in it, and the fire department responds with a horse-drawn wagon. Well, in one of the early scenes in the film Prof. Jarrod(Vincent Price)is conducting a prospective investor, Sidney Wallace(Paul Cavanagh), on a tour of his wax museum. There are gas lights everywhere. They arrive at an exhibit and Prof. Jarrod flips a wall switch, and presto the exhibit is illuminated in light. Somebody goofed!

If you've never seen The House of Wax, watch it. You'll love it.

One more interesting note. Dabbs Greer who plays Sergeant Jim Shane in this film also plays old Paul Edgecomb in the 1999 thriller The Green Mile.

I saw the remake recently of House of Wax and mainly that was because I just wanted to see Paris Hilton die once and for all! I was a satisfied customer, but the movie actually turned out to be pretty good, so I was very curious to see the original, especially since I love Vincent Price. Who wouldn't love him? He's the king of B-Horror Movies. He has brought us House of Wax, the original haunting tale of an artist who went too far to create his works of art.

Henry Jarrod is an artist who has devoted his life to his wax museum, but when his partner is upset with the investment and wishing it had better success, he offers to burn the place down and split the insurance money with Henry. But Henry refuses, his partner goes through with it by burning the place down and knocking Henry unconscious and leaving him for dead. But a little while later, his partner convinces the insurance company that Henry is dead and collects the insurance money, but things start to happen like the partner dies but it looks like suicide and Cathy's, our leading lady, best friend is murdered by a horribly disfigured man and her best friend's body disappears only to happen to look like a figure of Henry's new exhibit.

House of Wax maybe be tame by today's standards, but just think of the time, no one ever thought in a million years of something this horrific. A sick artist taking our corpses or killing us just because we would inspire him, it's a scary thought. Vincent Price added so much horror and beauty to this picture that will never be forgotten once you have seen it.

8/10

HOUSE OF WAX established Vincent Price as a horror film icon. He's never hammy here. He's best when describing gruesome details (like torture or murder) with a slight grin, as if he's building to a punchline. Crane Wilbur's screenplay has well researched details (regarding how wax sculpting works, the effects of chemical burns for example) improves on the 1933 original. Here Vincent Price plays Henry Jerrod, a wax sculptor whose first try at a wax museum meets the same infernal end as Atwill's museum in the first film. 12 years later, Jerrod opens a new museum. One of his intern sculptors dates a model, Sue (Phyllis Kirk) who is hounded by a mysterious man with a distorted face. In the original film version, made in 1933, Fay Wray plays a beautiful, but uninteresting damsel in distress. Phyllis Kirk fills Fay Wray's part here, and man, is she even more boring! But don't worry, you have plenty of Vincent to make this DVD worthwhile. It's easy to find in a bit part, young Charles Bronson (billed here as Charles Buchinsky) as one of Jerrod's s interns. HOUSE OF WAX's most famous element is that it was made in 3-D. This new gimmick, meant to lure television viewers back to the box office was novel, but it had it's kinks. (Warner Brothers improved the process a year later with the 3-D release of Hitchcock's DIAL M FOR MURDER, and yet another period horror film, PHANTOM OF THE RUE MORGUE.) The most amusing 3-D moment in HOUSE OF WAX has almost nothing to do with the story. A carnival barker, (played with crowd-pleasing energy by Reggie Rymal) constantly whacks a paddle-ball outside the wax museum, while heralding the museum's opening night thrills. He faces the camera (meaning us) and says `You! With the popcorn. Hold still.' and he proceeds to repeatingly whack the ball at the camera. HOUSE OF WAX is a lot of fun, and was a big hit at the time. The DVD does not come with a 3-D Process, but it does come with coverage of HOUSE OF WAX's Hollywood Premier. It's attended by Bela Lugosi and friend, Jack Warner, and Ronald Reagan (See, even Presidents watch horror movies!)