Now, it’s not exactly out of line to believe that, when Hollywood decides to apply its own brand of creativity and film a movie that was already filmed forty to fifty or more years ago, not much is going to survive the translation.

But House of Wax was something different…a halfway decent translation, updated for the era, with some new twists added to it.

A Taper and A Votive

Just in case you’re puzzling over that, they’re both candles, just shaped differently. And it’s a really good analogy for the two Houses of Wax. Both share the same major hook and similar horrific nature. No, I’m not going to tell you what the hook is just in case you haven’t seen either yet. This is generally not where spoilers are made. The analogy holds in a peachy fashion – both involve a whole lot of wax and they’ll be set on fire before the end of things.

But The New One’s Got A Scent!

There’s a whole lot of modification that went into the new House of Wax – first off, the appearance of Paris Hilton, which is noteworthy in and of itself. Love her or hate her, it was one of her first (and not surprisingly last) motion picture roles. Better though is Elisha Cuthbert, who took her role a whole lot farther than anyone had a right to expect – trust me on that. Lots of new plot elements, and lots of new set designs gave the old fright flick a new coat of paint and even some new substance.

Surprisingly Realistic

Say what you will about the idea of remaking old films, but House of Wax came off about as well as a remake could, given the rest of the population.

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