House of Wax
 

Does anyone have the ORIGINAL CASE to House of Wax. I think the film was made in 1932? If not what year? Thanks.

1953
CK

Mystery of the Wax Museum was in 1932. It was remade in '53 as House of Wax:)

And Im not sure that I understand your question Darkness, but you can get a great double feature DVD that has both the '32 and '53 movies. I rented it awhile back and watched both...very similar. IMO, the '53 version is a bit better.

Actually, I don't think House of Wax ('53) was a remake of Mystery of the Wax Museum ('32). Different movies, I think, just similar themes.

Have you seen both of them? Alot of stuff is nearly identical.

Yah I guess you're right. I just always thought of them as seperate films. Maybe I was just catagorizing them with their titles.

I watched the back-to-back, so I guess it was easier to spot the similarities:)

Both great films, though structurally each suffers from the same problem - the most exciting scene, the burning of the wax museum, takes place at the beginning of the films. It's an up-hill battle to keep the momentum going afterwards.

Most interesting to me are the differences in the films. MYSTERY was set in the present day (30's), while HOUSE was a period piece.

Lionel Atwill's assistant in MYSTERY was a drug addict. Price's assistant in HOUSE was an alcoholic.

Both of these changes suggest to me that Warner Brothers was trying to play it safe with HOUSE OF WAX. No drugs! And let's make it a period piece so it will be scary!

While the last ten minutes of the new HOUSE OF WAX was definitely interesting visually... I found it to be a dismal mistake otherwise. Price and Atwill are both spinning in their graves.

I think the re-make turned out to be better than other modern re-makes like Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, in my opinion.

Is it possible, by the way, that the beginning of the movie (teenagers on a road trip to a backwater town) could be some kind of "nod" to Tobe Hooper's Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

God loves opinions, but the use of the word remake with HOUSE OF WAX is almost as pathetic a lie as their "reimagining". They ripped-off the title of an old classic... period.

And while I don't mean to offend, because you could be right in that it's a "nod" to TCM; it could also be a "nod" to EVIL DEAD, ALIEN DEAD, CABIN FEVER, WRONG TURN or a million other flicks. Or it could just as easily be lazy screenwriters coupled with a complete lack of originality.

"No." :mad:

Are you sure?

I know! I hate that "reimagining" crap....just a way to bank on the name of classic while turning it into your run of the mill "pretty teenagers getting hacked up" flick. There are certainly some remakes I appreciate. Hell, I might even end up liking this one, though I seriously doubt it from what I have heard. But enough is enough already.

Okay, okay....I'll stop....I have made my opinion on this very clear I guess...:p

Remake by definition is to make anew or in a different form, especially a new version of an earlier movie. Going further, a remake might well be an adaptation (Something that is changed so as to become suitable to a new or special application/situation.) of an older film, by the looks of so-called remakes these days.

While many remakes are mere rip-offs from lazy screenwriters, trying to cash in on the old classic, this conclusion cannot apply to many creative and skillful directors who decide to do remakes for purely artistic reasons. If John Carpenter's The Thing doesn't say anything to you, I don't know what will.

I think that inspite of the seemingly teens-getting-hacked premise of House of Wax, the director had some inspiration and has injected new ideas into the story. A breath of fresh air, if you will. I don't agree that this movie has merely ripped off the title.

I can certainly understand how frustrating and irritating it is to see <i>another</i> teen slasher film. There has been too much of this sort of crap lately, the latest of which is Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But let's not get jaded and just assume that the next new remake is going to be crap. Hey, it might very well be, but at least keep your mind open.

That's what I would call a rip-off. Including (although not a horror film) Assault on Precinct 13!

Lamoreux, I didn't realize there's that many teens-on-the-road films. But Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the grandfather of all these flicks. And therein lies the "nod" idea. You're being too literal with it anyway. EVIL DEAD and CABIN FEVER are in no way similar to TCM.

I haven't seen ALIEN DEAD and WRONG TURN.

I always give them a chance (I will even watch this one and might even enjoy it, like I said before), but to be honest, since the horrid remake of The Haunting, I have been leery, at best, of remakes. I like many of them. I even liked the Dawn of the Dead remake. The Fly and The Thing remakes are both incredible. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of effort to make original films anymore. That is my main issue. There are so many of them. One every once in awhile is fine (if there is an actual attempt to make an interesting, fresh film that pays proper respect to the original material) but it is just out of control now. There is so little risk taking (between remakes and the stifling of a director's vision) and it is making the horror genre stale.

i was dissapinted when i saw the film and it WASNT about girls maintaining their bikini lines as i had hoped...

Because kicking a dead horse is such good sport...

My point is simply that HOUSE OF WAX (2005) is NOT a remake. It is not a NEW VERSION of an earlier movie. It has not injected NEW IDEAS into a story. It borrowed (read that, stoled) the title of a classic horror film, said, "Hey, let's actually make a house out of wax! Get it!" and wrapped a completely average much-older-actors-pretending-they're-teens slasher film around their, eh hem, idea.

I didn't say squat about Carpenter's THE THING. Had I, it would have gone something like this: Fantastic picture that took the time and trouble to go back to the original source material and make a terrific new film. A great REMAKE.

And my opinion has little to do with the fact I didn't like the new HOUSE OF WAX. I hated the remake of THE FLY. Nevertheless, they went to the effort to retell the same story. Therefore it is a true remake and a valiant effort. Whether or not I like it is completely beside the point.

Lastly, I was not comparing EVIL DEAD and CABIN FEVER to TCM. I was listing films featuring teens (or, more to the point, protagonists) stuck in the middle of bumbf--k Arkansas who run into things that say, "Rah! I'm a monsta!" There are many, many, MANY. And I won't bore either you or myself by listing any more. A carload of... whoever... on their way to... wherever... when they run into trouble is a standard movie device for launching a picture. See MY COUSIN VINNEY for heaven's sake. It is servicable and it gets the picture going, but probably wasn't an ephiphany striking the writer in the shower that required his jumping out and scratching the idea in the collected steam on the medicine cabinet mirror.

That said, I'm glad you enjoyed HOUSE OF WAX. Outside of the interesting visuals at the climax, I did not.

Okay, now I'm starting to understand the idea of what qualifies a movie as a remake...keeping in line with the basic premises outlined within the source material. If that is the case, then I recant my earlier post about House of Wax being a remake.

Visited the movie site and was surprised that they coined it as a re-imagining...what does that mean?