Vincent Price, with
his abyss of a voice and those dead-stare eyes that play like daggers, remains
the King of Horror Movies in my book. He has no successor. Two of
his earliest flicks are “House of Wax” and “House on Haunted Hill,” with
Price as an oddball NYC artist driven to sinister deeds after his wax museum is
torched and he builds anew with a shocking sicko canvas, and then as a rich mystery host
to a party at a haunted California mansion that promises $10,000 to any guest
who survives a creepy lock-in. “Wax” -– itself a remake remade many times -– is classic with its ghoulish madman taking bodies, alive and not, and how the camera just sits on wax faces as they melt in fire. The then-new
3-D gimmicks may once have dazzled but now only seem silly, but never mind that. Imagine 1950s kids screaming horror at this nasty fun tale. “House” is too wink-wink meta, from its dumb opening to the nudge-nudge fourth-wall-busting
asides. Sure it has several scares, and Price struts around deflating every other man within range, but even for corn, it’s all quite lame and forgetful. Not “Wax.” Wax: A- House: B-
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