House of Wax on DVD

Here’s a 3D classic (in 2D) that’s not only a great blast from the past, but which is also an excellent DVD value because it offers you two films for the price of one.

Okay, they’re basically the same film, but that’s okay!

In House of Wax, Vincent Price is delicious as Professor Henry Jarrod, a gifted sculptor who is disfigured and driven mad when his nasty capitalist partner inflicts a case of “financial combustion” on his money-losing museum.

He’s a true artiste seeking the perfect model for his greatest creations - then, in his mad anguish, he comes up with the perfect scheme for getting just that right touch of realism into his statues.

We won’t tell you what it is, though it isn’t hard to guess in a horror movie and most of you probably already know anyway.

Price is his great oily self in this “movie that crowned him the movies’ master of the macabre” (according to the box, spelling corrected). He’s joined by a wonderful supporting cast that displays, depending on the role, just the right amount of vulnerability, macho, etc. etc.

Phyllis Kirk is the object of Price’s desire - not sexually but because her classic beauty will make her the perfect model for his Marie Antoinette sculpture. Carolyn Jones, who later came to fame as Morticia on TV’s original Addams Family series, is one of his early - er - models. And a young Charles Bronson is appropriately menacing as Igor, one of Price’s assistants.

The movie’s not particularly scary, but it’s enjoyable enough. And it’s fun to watch for the obvious 3D tricks, even though you aren’t watching the DVD in 3D.

The DVD is presented in its original 4x3 aspect ratio, so owners of 16x9 TV sets will have to stretch and/or zoom the picture to fill the screen lest they contribute to burn in. This is better than artificially cropping the picture, of course. Overall video quality is spotty; it’s very grainy in many places, but at least the colors are bright and rich.

Audio is Dolby Digital Surround Stereo, though it sounded suspiciously like mono to us (not that there’s anything really wrong with that when dealing with a movie of this vintage). Its overall quality is unremarkable, which is unsurprising.

Extras? Well you get the trailer - and as mentioned you also get a whole second feature on the opposite side of the disc.

The Mystery of the Wax Museum is the 1933 original from which House of Wax was remade. It’s actually pretty good. Of course, having been directed by the great Michael Curtiz means it has a pretty good pedigree to begin with.

Lionel Atwill and the great Fay Wray star in this version, to which House of Wax was remarkably true.

This DVD is presented in its original Technicolor which, though quite washed out, is an interesting experience for a 1933 movie. It’s also in the original aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (4x3) so the above caveat about 16x9 TV owners applies here as well.

What a great double bill of a couple of guilty pleasures!

House of Wax, from Warner Home Video
88 min. full frame (not 16x9 TV compatible), Dolby Digital Surround Stereo
Starring Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk, Carolyn Jones,
Produced by Bryan Foy
Written by Crane Wilbur, directed by Andre De Toth

Mystery of the Wax Museum, from Warner Home Video
77 min. full frame (not 16x9 TV compatible), Dolby Digital mono
Starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell
Directed by Michael Curtiz

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