House of Wax (1953)/ Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)

Vincent Price is one of the few screen actors that was able to make a completely loathsome character likable.  Take House of Wax, for instance. Price stars as Henry Jarrod, a mad sculptor who murders people (who resemble historical figures), covers their bodies with wax, and then puts them on display at his wax museum.  He is the kind of character that audiences love to hate! Yet, we don’t hate Henry Jarrod, rather we find him sympathetic; he maybe the kindest villain ever to grace the silver screen.  When the meddlesome Sue Allen is taken aback by how much his Joan of Arc sculpture resembles her recently deceased friend, Cathy, Jarrod tries to put her mind ease by telling her he modeled his Joan of Arc after a picture of Cathy  he saw in the newspaper. Does she buy the explanation? NO! Her nonstop snooping (((SPOILERS))) eventually leads to poor Jarrod’s untimely demise. I remember watching House of Wax for the first time with my friend Joe and we kept getting annoyed at how Sue Allen kept sticking her nose where it wasn't wanted. Whenever she would touch the Joan of Arc wax figure, we would scream at the television, “He just told you not to touch the damn sculpture!”  The audience wants Jarrod to succeed, despite his homicidal tendencies.  This is entirely due to Vincent Price’s charismatic performance; Henry Jarrod is the most likable character in the entire film. It certainly doesn't help that Phyllis Kirk gives a rather stiff performance as Sue Allen.  If it was different actor portraying Jarrod, then chances are the audiences would cheer when he plunges head first into a vat of ((((AGAIN SPOILERS))) boiling wax.

 

House of Wax was a remake of the 1933 film, Mystery of the Wax Museum, and is one of the few remakes that is superior to its predecessor.  Mystery of the Wax Museum is fun horror film, highlighted by a wonderfully sinister performance by Lionel Atwill as the mad sculptor, Ivan Igor. However, it’s littered with too much comedy relief, provided by Glenda Farrell (as wisecracking reporter, Florence Dempsey), to be considered a true classic of the horror genre. I actually like Farrell’s performance, she is a lot of fun and energetic, and is certainly more interesting than Charlotte, the damsel in distress portrayed to perfection by Fay Wray. It is also interesting to note that it is Florence who drives the narrative of the story; she is investigating the disappearance of a body from the city morgue, and her fact finding leads her directly to Igor’s wax museum.  She’s a tough as nails reporter and is able to hold her own in a man’s world.  

The problem is that Farrell’s character seems more at home in a film like His Girl Friday than in a gruesome horror film.  The comedy is so prevalent that the horror is almost secondary; Farrell probably has more screen time than Atwill and Wray combined, and I am not exaggerating.  The comedy has the effect of defusing any tension that the filmmakers were hoping to build up, because Farrell is too busy trading barbs with her editor (Frank McHugh), or flirting with a murder suspect (Gavin Gordon), that there’s never a sense of urgency. It’s not until the movie’s last fifteen minutes (Charlotte finds herself in the clutches of the mad Igor) that the audience is given a time element. Will Florence and company save Charlotte? Or will she be turned into a permanent resident of Igor’s wax museum?

Fay Wray is given second billing in the credits, but probably has less than twenty minutes of actual screen time. The character of Charlotte doesn't first appear until the half hour mark, roughly the middle of the film. She isn't given much to do except scream at the top of her lungs. This, unfortunately, is what Miss Wray is best remembered for. Yet, Charlotte is an infinitely more appealing heroine than Sue Allen in the remake.  While Fay Wray’s acting was limited, she did have a genuine screen presence that usually made up for her short comings. She radiated warmth and sincerity when she was onscreen, which explains why she has become a film legend.  That and the fact that she starred opposite a giant ape the same year Wax Museum was released. She is the kind of woman that most men in the audience (excuse the sexism, ladies) would want to protect from all harm. We genuinely fear for her life, because she comes off as being so vulnerable. Sue Allen is a fairly distant character that we find ourselves less engaged in her peril.  Also, Charlotte unwittingly stumbles into Igor's web by happening to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, she is dating one of his assistants. Sue Allen, on the other hand, practically is asking for trouble by constantly sticking her nose where it isn't wanted. Sue Allen is a stronger heroine than Charlotte, but even she is relegated to being the damsel in distress at the film's climax.

Mystery of the Wax Museum takes many of it's cues from the previous year's Doctor X, made by the same cast and crew. Like Wax Museum, Doctor X's central character is reporter investigating a string of murders that happen on the night of a full moon.  Unlike Wax Museum, the reporter is a bumbling male, who not only serves as the film's comic relief, but as a love interest for Fay Wray as well. Poor Miss Wray! The comedy in  Doctor X is completely jarring given how gruesome the subject matter truly is: a murderer who dabbles in cannibalism. Doctor X has essentially the same strengths and flaws as Mystery of the Wax Museum; they both are wonderfully atmospheric and have exciting endings, but can be fairly tedious at times. Florence, however, is infinitely more likable than Lee Taylor, the male reporter who stumbles into the role of hero.

House of Wax improves on the original by writing out the reporter character and focusing more on the Henry Jarrod/ Sue Allen storyline.  There is a greater sense of danger in the remake then there was in the original film. The first victim in Mystery of the Wax Museum is Joan Gale, a young woman who apparently committed suicide, but it is later revealed to have been murdered. The problem is that Gale’s murder happens off screen and the only connection we have with her is a photograph printed in the newspapers obituary column. In House of Wax, the murder of Cathy Gray, close friend of Sue Allen, is genuinely shocking, because the audience empathizes with her.  Cathy, despite her brief screen time, is a fully developed character, wonderfully played by Carolyn Jones.  When we first meet Cathy, we assume that she is a dumb blonde, given her tendency to giggle at just about anything. However, her ditzy demeanor is just an act; a ruse into attracting potentially wealthy suitors.  House of Wax’s setting is in the 1890s, which was not a particularly kind time for single women.  Cathy does whatever she can to survive, even if means playing dumb and using her body to win the favor of Mathew Burke, Jarrod’s former partner, who hopes to be collecting insurance money really soon.   However, in span of five minutes, Cathy is dealt two blows:

1) Matthew Burke is murdered. He is hung by a horribly disfigured man dressed in black. Cathy dreams of being in a stable relationship are shattered.
2) Cathy suffers the same fate as Burke. She is murdered in her bedroom.

The murder of Cathy is genuinely surprising, because there is absolutely no build up to the moment. Sue Ellen returns to her apartment building from a job interview, only to find her landlord demanding her rent. Sue Allen is penniless at the moment, but Cathy has offered to lend her some money. Sue Ellen enters Cathy’s apartment and finds her asleep in the bedroom. She calls out Cathy’s name a few time, but gets no answer. She walks closer to the bed, only to find, much to her horror, that Cathy has been strangled.  Just when things couldn’t get any worse, a black figure emerges from behind the bed and chases after Sue Ellen.  It is a surprising turn of events, given that a few minutes earlier the two of them were enjoying each other’s company and having a few laughs.  It is very much the anti-thesis of the slasher films, which slowly builds to a victim’s inevitable death; the unseen killer has his target in sights and does them in any extremely protracted manner.  In the House of Wax, there is nothing to tip us off that Cathy is going to come to such a gruesome end; no POV shot of the killer looking outside apartment, etc.

House of Wax is remembered for two reasons, it jump started Vincent Price’s horror film career and it was made in 3D. I had the privilege of seeing House of Wax in 3D a few years ago at the Times Cinema in Milwaukee and it was a lot of fun. I think part of the fun is that director Andre de Toth is absolutely shameless with his use of the gimmick; there’s a scene in which Sue Ellen and Scott Andrews (her boyfriend) are at a Can Can and all the dancers stick their butts right out at the screen. Probably, the most famous scene is the paddle ball man; Jarrod hires a barker to drum up business for his wax museum, the guy’s specialty is doing tricks with a paddle ball. It’s a gratuitous scene, but extremely effective, at least in the 3D version, especially when the ball keeps bouncing at your eyes. 

Vincent Price would continue to make horror films throughout his career with varying success, but in House of Wax he is frightening, yet simultaneously sympathetic.  Henry Jarrod is slightly crazy at the film’s beginning; he talks to his sculptures and thinks of them as his children. When Burke sets fire to Jarrod’s wax museum (to collect insurance money), it not only scars Jarrod physically, but mentally as well. He completely losses any sense of reality; in his mind he is doing his victims are great service by immortalizing them in wax.  There is a lot pathos in Price’s performance that was lacking in Lionel Atwill’s no nonsense portrayal in the original film. Lionel Atwill was a terrific actor and his Igor is truly menacing, but his straightforward performance is at odds with the nonstop humor in the film. It is shame that Atwill constantly has to play second fiddle to wisecracking Glenda Farrell, when he should have been given his own starring vehicle to shine in. On the other hand, the comedy relief in the remake is not nearly as jarring, because Price allows for humor to creep into his performance; at point a woman becomes overwhelmed by the horrific waxworks and faints, Jarrod interrupts his tour of the wax museum and offers her friends some smelling salts.

 

Credits:

Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
Cast: Glenda Farrell (Florence Dempsey), Lionel Atwill (Ivan Igor), Fay Wray (Charlotte Duncan), Frank McHugh (Jim), Allen Vincent (Ralph Burton), Gavin Gordon (George Winton), Edwin Maxwell (Joe Worth), Arthur Edmund Carewe (Sparrow – Professor Darcy), Holmes Herbert (Dr. Rasmussen), Claude King (Mr. Galatalin), Thomas E. Jackson (Detective), DeWitt Jennings (Police Captain), Matthew Betz (Hugo), Monica Bannister (Joan Gale).

Director: Michael Curtiz
Screenplay: Don Mullaly, Carl Erickson.  Charles Belden (story).

Running Time: 77 min.

House of Wax (1953)
Cast: Vincent Price (Prof. Henry Jarrod), Frank Lovejoy (Lt. Tom Brennan), Phyllis Kirk (Sue Allen), Carolyn Jones (Cathy Gray), Paul Picerni (Scott Andrews), Roy Roberts (Matthew Burke), Dabbs Greer (Sgt. Jim Shane), Paul Cavanagh (Sidney Wallace), Angela Clarke (Mrs. Andrews), Charles Bronson (Igor), Nedrick Young (Leon Averill), Reggie Rymal (The Barker), Philip Tonge (Bruce Allison), Frank Ferguson (Medical Examiner). 

Director: Andre de Toth
Screenplay: Crane Wilbur.  Charles Belden (story)

Running Time: 88 min.

10 Worst Horror Films I Have Ever Seen.

There have been so many dreadful horrors that it was almost impossible for to just settle on ten. However, after thinking about it for a few days (I have no life), I narrowed my list down to these ten titles. There are many of bad horror films I have yet to see, so this list could easily change in the future.

10) Halloween II (2009)

Dir: Rob Zombie.
Cast: Scout Taylor-Compton, Taylor Mane, Malcolm McDowell, Brad Dourif, Danielle Harris, Sheri Moon Zombie, Margot Kidder, Mary Birdsong, Bea Grant.
Running Time:  105 min.

I absolutely loathed Rob Zombie's remake of Hallween, the only reason it isn't on my top 10 list is because Halloween II is infinitely worse. Slasher films aren't exactly high works of art, but even the bottom feeders tend to have at least one character you an empathize with...... not so with Halloween II. For instance, I enjoy the first four entries in Friday the 13th series, largely because the characters are at least fun too watch. Sure, their main function is to meet grisly ends, but at least they are pleasant company. They are the kind people you would want to be on a weekend get away with. In Halloween II, everyone is miserable. 

I like Rob Zombie, his music is entertaining for the most part and he comes off as being highly intelligent in interviews, therefore it's complete shame that this film is mind numbingly awful. Zombie is more of a "shock" director than an actual "horror" director. Meaning, he'll lull you into a hypnagogic state, only to jump out and scream "BOO" at you! Take for instance the death of Laurie's friend, Harley. She is at a costume party, dressed up as Dr. Frank-N- Furter (from The Rocky Horror Picture Show) and is fixing to fornicate in the back of a van with a guy wearing a werewolf mask! UH-OH! The guy, however, ask to take a leak first and is dispatched by Michael, while he is urinating on a tree. Then Michael crashes through the back window of the van and snaps poor Harley's spine. It's an extremely violent moment, yet it's not in the least bit scary, and eventually the shock value wears off on the viewer.  The original Halloween slowly builds to it's inevitable climax, the audience is constantly in a state of unease, wondering when Michael Meyers is going to strike. In Halloween II, we don't really care, we just want the damn movie to end. 

9) Hell of the Living Dead (1980)

Dir: Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso.
Cast: Margit Evelyn Newton, Franco Garofolo, Selan Karay.
Running Time:  101 min.

My summary of Hell of the Living Dead: Endless bickering among the characters, endless nature stock footage, and lots of cheap looking gore. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. The zombie make up looks like play dough, and is often on the verge of falling off the faces of the poor extras. It's a third rate Dawn of the Dead, which is probably giving it too much credit.  The hilariously awful dubbing is amusing for a little bit, but gets old after awhile. 

  

8) Maniac (1934)

Dir: Dwain Esper
Cast: William Woods, Horace B. Carpenter, Ted Edwards, Phyllis Diller (not the comedienne), Theo Ramsey.
Running Time: 51 min.

Maniac is about a hammy ex-vaudeville actor Don Maxwell that finds himself an assistant to Dr. Meirschultz, a mad scientist experimenting on resurrecting the dead. Maxwell kills Meirschultz and covers up his crime by impersonating the mad doctor, driving himself insane in the process. Maniac is noteworthy in that in tries to pass itself of as an educational film about mental illness; there are inter titles scattered throughout explaining what the main character is experiencing. To visualize Maxwell's descent into madness, director Esper superimposes footage from the Benjamin Christensen classic Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages over his face. By posing as an educational film it gave Esper leeway to show woman in the nude, as well as get away with extreme violence; at one point Maxwell plucks out a cat's eyeball and eats it. It's a horrible film to be sure, but probably the only film on this list that is remotely fascinating, given the era that it was made. 

7) Jaws:The Revenge (1987)

Dir: Joseph Sargent.
Cast: Lorraine Gary, Lance Guest, Mario Van Peebles, Karen Young, Michael Caine, Judith Barsi.
Running Time: 90 min.
Jaws is one of my favorite movies. Jaws: The Revenge, on the other hand, is pure schlock, only good for a few unintended laughs. Whereas Jaws kept the shark off screen for the majority of the movie, The Revenge makes the mistake of showing too much.In one laughable bit, the shark jumps out of the water and devours a  woman that is sitting on top of a banana boat.

Lorraine Gary returns as Ellen Brody, who constantly has flashbacks to the first film. In fact, she some how able to remember events that she wasn't apart of, like Martin Brody disposing of the shark in the first film. Gary tries her hardest, but the material lets her down. Apparently, some genius decided that if the Great White Shark roared like King Kong, it would be much more scary. Thankfully, we were spared a Jaws 5: In Space. 

6) The Snow Creature (1954)

Dir: W. Lee Wilder.
Cast: Paul Langton, Leslie Denison, Teru Shimada, Rollin Moriyana, Darlene Fields.
Running Time: 70 min.
A real snoozer! W. Lee Wilder is name that completely gets overlooked in the “Worst Director of All Time” conversation, possibly because his films are so boring that they are easy to forget. He sneezed out three non classics in the 1950s: Killers From Space (with Peter Graves), Phantom From Space, and The Snow Creature. Amazingly, he was the older brother of Billy Wilder, quite possibly the greatest director in Hollywood history. The Snow Creature is not only hampered by a low budget, the same shot of Yeti walking towards the camera is recycled throughout the film, but by an incredibly dull cast.

It’s an incredibly uninvolving and joyless film; when a Himalayan village is attacked by a Yeti, the main character shrugs with complete indifference.  It also blatantly steals the plot from King Kong; the Yeti is captured and brought to Los Angeles, where it escapes and runs amok. There are better ways to spend 70 minutes.

5) Zombie Lake (1981)

Dir: Jean Rollin.
Cast: Howard Vernon, Pierre-Maris Escourrou, Anouchka, Antonio Mayans, Nadine Pascal, Youri Radionow.
Running Time:  90 min.
A squad of green skinned, bugged eyed Nazi zombies arise from the bottom lake and terrorize a French village that murdered them years ago. Their main victim of choice: curvaceous, female skinny dippers. There's also a "heart warming" subplot in which one of the zombies is reunited with his daughter, the product of an affair he had with a local woman. The fact that he is able to recognize his daughter is, in itself, a mystery, considering he was killed before her birth. This subplot also highlights just how incompetent of a film Zombie Lake truly is; his daughter is roughly ten years old, which would put the setting of this movie some time in the mid 1950s, yet the fashions, hair styles, and technology place it in the late 70s/early 80s. The filmmakers were to lazy to replicate a 1950s setting, which makes everything more confusing. Not to mention, director Jean Rollin seems to have confused zombies for vampires; the undead Nazis bite the necks of their victims and suck their blood.

4) Monster a-Go Go (1965)

Dir: Bill Rebane, Herschell Gordon Lewis.
Cast: Philip Morton, June Travis, George Perry.
Running Time:  70 min.

Monster a-Go Go is about an astronaut that crash lands on Earth and has been transformed into a deformed, radioactive monster. This idea was done before in The First Man In Space (1959) and The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), but while those films were actually interesting, Monster a Go-Go is 70 minutes of pure boredom. There's lot of narration and very little characterization. It's also extremely disjointed; characters often disappear without explanation. It also is extremely anti-climatic; the military follows the monster into the sewer, only to find that is has disappeared.  We are then treated to this mind blowing piece of narration:

As if a switch had been turned, as if an eye had been blinked, as if some phantom force in the universe had made a move eons beyond our comprehension, suddenly, there was no trail! There was no giant, no monster, no thing called "Douglas" to be followed. There was nothing in the tunnel but the puzzled men of courage, who suddenly found themselves alone with shadows and darkness! With the telegram, one cloud lifts, and another descends. Astronaut Frank Douglas, rescued, alive, well, and of normal size, some eight thousand miles away in a lifeboat, with no memory of where he has been, or how he was separated from his capsule! Then who, or what, has landed here? Is it here yet? Or has the cosmic switch been pulled? Case in point: The line between science fiction and science fact is microscopically thin! You have witnessed the line being shaved even thinner! But is the menace with us? Or is the monster gone?

Brilliant!

3)The Creeping Terror (1964)

Dir: Vic Savage.
Cast: Vic Savage, Shannon O’ Neill, William Thourlby, John Careisio.
Running Time:  75min.
The soundtrack to The Creeping Terror was supposedly erase during post-production, so instead of dubbing over lines, the filmmakers opted to go with an omniscient narrator that never shuts up. The narrator constantly reaffirms things that are being shown onscreen, "The military was called in....," etc. The terror is essentially a walking carpet with a tip shaped like a piece of asparagus that meanders across the countryside and devours people that get in its path. The deaths in this film could easily be avoided if the monster's victims, instead of just lying perfectly still waiting to be devoured, got up and walked a way at a leisurely pace. Every horrific moment consists of the monsters very slowly crawling towards its next meal, while the person just lies there helpless, never once thinking to get up. The camera also lingers on the behinds of the monster's young, female victims as it gobbles them up.

2) Curse of Bigfoot (1976)

Dir: Dave Flocker.
Cast: Bob Clymire, Bill Simonsen, Jan Swihart.
Running Time: 88 min.

Here's a typical moment in Curse of Bigfoot:
Two lumberjacks are driving through the woods in a pick up truck, when all of a sudden Bigfoot runs across the road. One of them (wearing a wool hat) goes into the woods to investigate, while the other one waits at the truck. Wool Hat Man walks through the woods and then is attacked. Sounds exciting, right? Well, the scene in question goes on for nearly seven minutes and the attack in question happens off screen and is signified by a scream. It's a film that builds up to nothing! There's never any real sense of danger,because we're never shown an actual murders.  It doesn't help that the Monster suit looks like it came from a kindergarten pageant.

It's a tedious film that desperately apes the Howard Hawks film The Thing From Another World, but fail miserable. A nice cure for those who suffer from insomnia. 

1) Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

Dir: Harold P. Warren.
Cast: Tom Neyman, John Reynolds, Diane Mahree, Harold P. Warren, Jackey Neyman.
Running Time: 74 min.

It's only 74 minutes long, but it's the longest 74 minutes you'll ever experience. Manos: The Hands of Fate is quite possibly the most inept movie ever made. Supposedly, it was made on a bet between director Harold P. Warren and screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, in which the former bet the latter he could make a movie for $19,000. It was never stated that the movie actually had to be good, so Warren won the bet. It's obvious that Warren is not familiar with the concept of editing, as there are scenes where characters stand around awkwardly staring blankly into thin air, as if awaiting their cue from the director. In another scene, the hillbilly satyr Torgo gets a bit touchy feely with the lead actress, who responds by staring in abject horror, then after enduring this abuse for about two minutes finally yells at him to stop.

In another famous moment, two cops hear a gun shot in this distance and decide to investigate. They get out of their squad car, take a few steps into the desert, scan the area for a few seconds, and then call it a day. Exciting!