House of Wax + Update

Starring: Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murry, Paris Hilton
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Tagline: "Prey. Slay. Display"

Ok so this flik came out quite a bit ago and I think it's been out on DVD for a time as well, but I finally got around to seeing it and to my upmost surprise, I enjoyed it a great deal. Despite many things that went wrong in the creation of this film (such as the hiring of the casting director: Paris Hilton and the guy from Cousing Skeeter ftw!), I think it did a lot of things right that are absent in the surge of horror films plaguing the box office recently.

It has a fairly creative story line. The main villain, albeit the archetype horror movie antagonist (torn past, deformed in some way, slight rip-offage of leather face), is one of the more refreshing of the pack of forgettable, faceless (har har, get it?) killers found in most horror fliks. But then again, I may have just enjoyed this movie because it had a lot of the appeal of old 70/80's horror fliks (particularly Texas Chainsaw Massacre). The enemy is not indestructable or supernatural in any way, the lame ass characters are so queer you enjoy seeing them die (in fact, yearn for it), and a plethora of unforgiving, grotesque imagery, unmatched in my opinion in comparison to other films. Many kudos to the prop/effect designers on this flik (my particular favorites being the all to random heaping pile of dead animal carcasses and Paris Hilton being javelined in her puckery, slut face). This movie, like almost every horror movie ever made, is plagued by pacing problems, boring, empty, and needless character development, and about 45 minutes of fluff and conventional "jumpy" scenes before anything interesting happens. No real twists here, just pretty straight forward teenage slaughter fest without trying too hard. This isn't exactly a hidden gem, but anyone who is a fan of horror movies and avoided this film thinking it was just another piece of crap in the larger pile of crap may want to check this one out.

7/10

On another note, I've been playing Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrows and will report my thoughts on that soon enough. I haven't touched it in a few weeks, with personal crap impeding my progress to...wait...you don't kill Dracula this time! Score! But anyways, been spending most of my spare time watching DVDs of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is the greatest show ever concieved by man since Seinfeld (ironically). Check that show out, or I may be forced to rant about it at length, and you'll have to read it. Whoever "you" are >_>. BTW, if anyone really reads this and cares about my personal life, I'm now single, meaning I can devote more time to rotting my brain on video games...erm...and that school thing. I also have a job, i.e. an income to blow on media! Woot! I also am going to be purchasing a new music playing device (not an iPod most likely), so drop me any suggestions if you'd like. I'm leaning towards the Creative Labs products (Zen Micro, Neeon Micro, Nomad). Leave some comments if you actually are getting any of this =D Later.