12 Great New Halloween Staples

There are only about four days left until Halloween. And being that I am nothing if not completely punctual, I'm here to give you a list of some of the best post-80s horror flicks so you can rush to watch them in these last few days. While the classics like Halloween, Texas Chainsaw and The Exorcist have been well-documented on this blog and, well, anywhere else you go to read about horror, I think there's still something to be said for the genre in the modern day, too. While nothing will replace the classics, there are plenty of creative filmmakers working today, putting out grisly, supernaturally-laced scares like it's nobody's business.

So...here they are.

12. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

While I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece, this really is a good slasher flick in a genre mostly oversaturated with nonsense and shoestring budget flicks these days. This combines some solid kills (of extremely annoying characters, no less) with a vicious plot twist just like the classics have. Add in a great lead character, some commentary on expectations on high school girls and shallowness of young people and a fast, fun pace, and you have yourself a very solid horror flick.

11. Contracted

Grisly, gross violence taken to the extreme. This is a crazy-ass story about a woman who is raped at a party and then her body starts to fall apart. Gore freaks will have a field day with this, as it is a brutal, extreme good time. The story and characters are well done, too, and like most great horror films it takes a real-world problem and hacks away at it with a chainsaw to make it into a bloodbath. Highly recommended.

10. Frozen

There are a lot of movies like this out there - survival flicks with characters battling nature. But this one is a cut above the rest due to its exciting pacing and the cool, desolate wintry setting - there's a real sense of darkness and abandonment in this, and the characters are a bit annoying I guess, but they also act like real people and I believed they were afraid. Unlike other such movies like Dead Snow or Cabin Fever, this takes itself pretty seriously and doesn't focus too much on the characters' drama. While it is there, the main focus is always on the survivalist element, and as such this is a killer romp I really recommend - especially when you're snowed in at night.

9. Trick 'R' Treat

Probably the most well-known movie on this list, but I'm mentioning it anyway just for its sheer October fun factor. It's an anthology film and all the stories are laced with some of the best Halloweenish atmosphere you'll find - it's practically drenched in that atmosphere. While I don't find this scary at all, I don't really think it was trying to be. It's just a fun, enjoyable romp, and a big part of Halloween is having fun too.

8. Orphan

This was a bit of a controversial film upon its release and a lot of horror fans didn't like it. I always did, though, and it still holds up now as a fun, dark, hilarious romp. I don't think this story, about a family adopting a little Russian girl who turns out to be more than they bargained for, is taking itself entirely seriously, and there are some very goofy, tongue-in-cheek scenes. A lot of 80s horror could be kind of silly, too, and it doesn't mean this is some kind of horror comedy - it just means you don't have to take everything super seriously all the time. However, this just makes the actual dark, serial-killer-y moments that much more fucking intense. When Orphan gets scary, it means business, and the scary scenes here are incredibly terse, violent and macabre. Great characters and acting also enhance this and set it apart from the norm, far better than most movies of its kind. Clever, eerie, fun and opaque - go see this if you had any doubts.

7. Oculus

Mike Flanagan is the go-to guy for good horror these days, as this 2014 movie is the horror Pick of the Year so far. It's a surreal, mysterious film about memory, perception and childhood, and the lead actors both do a good job at conveying that lost, confused feeling for the movie to work. While this movie does utilize some of the common tropes of modern horror, such as vague supernatural exposition and excessive flashback scenes, it just really works. Flanagan knows what he's doing and sells the shit out of this story, common as it may be. The flashbacks (to the main characters' troubled childhood) are incredibly well done and come off as a legitimately scary, tense story on their own, and the scenes in the present time are dreamlike, ethereal horror theater, with tons of fun, bizarro-world scares that I found extremely enjoyable. It's a bit predictable and like I said, does tend to use a lot of the tropes we're tired of in modern horror, but it does everything so well that I don't care.

6. The Sacrament

Ti West is a real upcoming talent, and this newest film of his is a real killer. It's a Jim Jones, Kool Aid Cult-esque thing about some journalists going to a remote island to investigate a 'self help' cult, and getting in over their heads. It's a very meat-and-potatoes story with little adornments, but the actors sell the shit out of it and the tension goes from pleasantly, slightly creepy to all-out pitch-black horror at the end. West's directing is at its best so far here, as he transitions between the build-up and the explosion of terror very smoothly, and overall it's a very well done film. Go see it.

5. House of the Devil

The first Ti West movie that really put him on the map five years ago, and still my favorite thing he's done. I mean, sure, the film wants to be the 1970s so bad it's practically obsessive, but the occult horror is so, so cool here. The lead girl is likable, which makes her eventual descent into occult madness at the hands of a Satanic cult that much more terrifying. The eerie ambiance of the film's first two acts explodes in the third act into some of the best horror since Sam Raimi laid down Evil Dead or Fulci did The Beyond - it's that fuckin' good, and you should see it if you haven't.

4. The Children

A movie about children that turn evil. It's a pretty basic storyline done very, very well as we see a bunch of British people get picked off like babes during hunting season by their own progeny. The atmosphere is morbid, the gore is completely fucking nuts and the story is laced with all kinds of dark, seedy character stuff that builds to a boiling point. It's really all about the tense, feral horror, which is as hungry as a ravenous wolf here - this is an energized, macabre trip that you won't forget. One of my favorite horror movies.

3. Session 9

Insane asylums practically write themselves as scary as fuck horror movie locations, but this movie has excellent writing to back it up as well. The story of a construction crew cleaning up an old abandoned asylum and gradually sinking into madness makes for what I consider a new classic. Atmospherically brilliant with good characters and a lot of underlying themes about madness and the human condition's relation to it - the mind's breaking point is explored in full. It's also a very ambiguous story, without any real clear word on what's going on. Is it supernatural, or are the characters just losing their minds? You owe it to yourself to see this if you haven't.

2. Pontypool

This is a zombie film about a disease which infects the English language and turns people in a small Canadian town into "empty radio signals" when they hear and understand words. The twist, aside from that, is that all the action takes place in a radio station and from the point of view of the people working there. Much of the blood and gore is just told to us, rather than actually shown. I really think this is a fascinating movie and one of the best-written horror films in years and years. The acting and characters are superb and the story about the English language being infected is so weird, it actually works. It puts a very cool, clever twist on words and is much more "literary" than many other horror films. If you haven't seen this, it's imperative you do.

1. Absentia

Up there with the five or six scariest movies I've ever seen. Mike Flanagan's first big movie is a bone-chilling tale about people going missing, telling the story of a woman about to declare her husband dead in absentia after he's been missing seven years. However, a mysterious tunnel nearby may have had something to do with it and the woman's sister, arriving suddenly, sets in motion a dark chain of events. It's just a perfect horror film. The tension and atmosphere are very well crafted, and you care about the characters - they act like real people and their conflict is real, at the center of the story even. That's the key to a good horror film. Horror comes when we care about what's going on and then realize, hey, there's something creepy going on here that we didn't notice. It's the perversion of the mundane. Through its story and atmosphere, Absentia grows on you like fungus until the terrifying last act. Not only scary but also sorrowful, wistful and fantastical - a classic that I highly recommend.

So that's my list. Any you'd recommend? Any you disagree with? Let me know!

The Conjuring (2013)

I know some people like this movie for some reason, so allow me to express my opinion of it in the most balanced, well-reasoned and fair way possible.

It fucking sucks ass! Why would anyone like this cancer-boil on the face of horror? It’s the same thing as every other unoriginal Exorcist-wannabe horror movie released since fucking Emily Rose and there is nothing – I repeat, N-O-T-H-I-N-G – original about it at all! Not to mention it’s boring as hell and incredibly poorly written – like, first-year-college drama students wouldn’t even pen something this dross. I don’t even think there’s a scary moment to be found. Fuck it!

Ahem. Okay. Now that’s out of my system and we can move on with the review.

Director: James Wan

Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor

IMDb

The Conjuring is the latest in a series of modernized horror movies made by James Wan. Wan got really famous back in the day for directing Saw, but then he went on to completely destroy that potential by directing Dead Silence. He made a good move by going with the mega-hit Insidious a few years later, but after that he seems to have decided “fuck it,” and just went back to doing complete shit like Insidious 2 and this movie. The Conjuring is a film that seems to forget there’s anything else you can possibly do with a movie besides rip off Poltergeist and The Exorcist. That’s really about it. Let’s take a look.

We kick off with a bunch of kids talking to the dad from Insidious and the mom from Orphan – a totally credible pair of characters, if you remember anything about their original movies. I’d trust them to exorcise my house about as much as I’d trust Dr. Kevorkian to treat cancer patients who have billion-dollar trust funds somewhere.

He kills old ladies and she slaps little girls in hospitals, I sure trust them any day to deal with my supernatural problems. Added bonus for the fact that Insidious Dad had ghosts following him around most of his life and ended up putting his whole family in danger more than once. Sounds trustworthy to me!

Apparently these two are paranormal researchers. The kids talking to them feed them some dumb story about how they let an evil ghost haunt their doll. Then when it started being, well, evil, they threw it out, but it kept on coming back. This whole thing is really just a Goosebumps story. Night of the Living Dummy? And this is supposed to be a serious modern horror movie. Get the fuck out.

WHAT? I can't believe bad stuff happened when we let an evil spirit live in our creepy ass doll! Yes, that's really the plot here. No, I haven't figured out a way to kill the writers yet.

We then switch over to bland 70s family with bland 70s wannabe lighting and color on the screen. They’re moving into a new house. This house has all the perks – places to play hide and seek in AND scary doors that open and close with ominous sound effects laid overtop! We get a long string of just dull as hell scenes – just this family going through every dull attempt at a scare this movie tries to pass off. Their oldest daughter is incredibly bitchy and annoying, and one of the younger daughters sleepwalks.

Witchcraft! Well, maybe if it was the 1770s, but I know it’s not that time period. This movie is too busy trying to shoehorn in blatant references to the 1970s. It’s about as subtle as the Brian De Palma Black Dahlia’s attempt to recreate the ‘40s. Sepia tones and stupid haircuts don’t make your movie any better.

Oh, and the dog dies:

Oh man, our dog just died! Let's never investigate why this happened and never mention it in the movie again. We are so awesome.

Fuck you. Also it’s never mentioned again, and they never investigate it. Glad to see they cared so much about their pet.

If that doesn’t make them care about creepy happenings at the house, how about their daughter having a nightmare and then waking up talking about someone wanting the family dead?

No, I guess that’s not enough to care or move out of the house at all. What’s the reason given for this again? Oh yeah, because they have money invested in the house. That trumps the safety of your family.

You know what does finally get them to do something about it though? One night they’re all sleeping and the sleepwalking daughter comes in, waking up bitchy daughter. Then they see a Grudge ghost and the bitchy daughter starts fighting with herself.

The daughter needs to quit watching bad Japanese movies before bed - they're not doing her imagination much good.

That apparently is enough. They hire Insidious Dad and Orphan Mom onto their case and they get right on it. What follows is about an hour of some of the most boring crap you’ll see in a horror movie these days. It has everything. You got the endless, boring scenes of people talking about whatever ancient histories and pasts the movie somehow thought was interesting – it’s not. It’s really not.

What kind of brain-mash thought this up? It’s practically just an afterthought – toss in some Satanic warbling about ghosts and killing babies, and you got yourself a poorly written horror backstory. Who even gives a shit? Just be honest about it. “We don’t really care at all about establishing a coherent, meaningful or scary story. We just wanted to make a cash grab in time for the end of the summer season. Just send us your money now, you corporate whore rider!”

"Why yes, this scene has been done in every other horror movie in the last decade. But we're still doing it. Because we just don't give a crap."

Play that over these scenes – it’ll be less deceptive. It’s not like there’s anything going on. Some crap about Satanic sacrifice and possession. Bitch, please. If you sacrificed anyone involved in this movie to Satan, he’d just send them right back to Earth with a little pink sticky note saying “Please try again” on it. But I digress – the movie sucks. That’s all I was trying to say.

We also get cliché jump scare scenes, of which there are too many to name. Ooh, are they going to have a quiet scene and then get real loud for the jump scare? Fucking don’t keep me waiting too long – the suspense is killing me. Yes, movie, bouncy balls truly are the way to keeping an audience on the edge of its seat:

40 minutes in and the scariest thing in the fuckin movie is a bouncy ball. Man, this is such a giant piece of shit.

"A bouncy ball killed my father..."

AAAAAGGGGHHHH THAT’S MY ONE GREATEST FEAR!

Don’t tell anyone. I can trust you, right?

But hey, it’s not like we’ve hit every cliché. There’s still one we’re missing! At least they haven’t done anything involving an exorcism yet – oh, wait. It’s the next scene where they mention that. And here I was having some form of hope for humanity left in my soul.

We’ll get to the exorcism soon enough. Before that wonderful scene, we have other things to contend with, like dying birds:

Those are never really talked about either. This movie just seems to hate animals.

We also get some despicably poor dialogue from almost every character. Like when they’re all having a sunny breakfast together the following morning – always good after a fresh round of bird suicides – and the mother says “The house hasn’t been like this in a long time!” Yeah, especially considering you moved in and the creepy shit started the next morning when the dog died. Oh, wait, I forgot nobody in the movie gave a shit about that – my bad.

How about when Insidious Dad gets handed some pancakes from the little girl who was also in Orphan? He’s like “They really are a nice family.” Yes, nice families truly are judged by the number of times little girls hand you pancakes. You goddamned weirdo.

There’s also a scene later where Mr. 70s Bowl Cut Dad finds Insidious Dad working on an old car. 70s Bowl Cut Dad says Insidious Dad “really looks like he knows what he’s doing,” even though all Insidious Dad is doing is sticking his hands inside the open hood of a car. How does that equal “knowing what he’s doing,” you fucking idiot? He could be wiring a car bomb to your engine! Granted, that’s implausible – though it would make this movie so much more entertaining.

Ugh, point is, the dialogue sucks. I guess that’s to be expected when most of the movie consists of dog-shit exposition spouted out like a broken leaky faucet in that scummy bathroom on the subway.

After that we get a scene where the demon tries to snatch the bitchy daughter. I’m not really sure what he’s trying to accomplish – he kinda just drags her around the room. Maybe that’s how he “gets to know” new girls. Or maybe he’s just really bad at “Tag.” Either way, you want to know what they do to free the daughter? Well, no, you don’t care. But I’ll tell you – they just cut off the part of her hair that the demon is holding onto. That somehow stops the demon from doing anything else.

Awesome, she can fly!

What the hell? What kinda pansy-assed pussy demon is this? Is cutting off that one part of her hair really enough? What a wuss. He probably slinked back into the shadows with his tail between his legs. Captain Howdy is laughing at you, you moron.

Elsewhere in the film’s rolls of fat we get references to other movies, like the aforementioned Captain Howdy – referenced here in a music box one of the little girls is holding. It’s poorly thought out and means almost nothing.

Well, “almost” is actually giving the film too much credit. We also get references to the previous movies these actors have been in, like several nods to Insidious in the house and the layout of the rooms. I’m pretty sure the scene where the Orphan mom is looking around the house is almost identical to the beginning of Insidious. Later on we get people looking around a bedroom with UV lights, similar to a certain scene in Orphan.

The first and third pics are from this movie, the second and fourth are from Insidious and Orphan respectively. Can you tell the difference? I wouldn't be able to if I hadn't been the one who took these screenshots. I really think this just points out the deficiency in how samey all of these modern horror movies look, both in the lighting/cinematography and the set pieces. We need some more original shit in the mix.

Originality, what’s that?!

The crowning failure of this whole mess is the climax, in which we get all the same old exorcism clichés you’ve seen before. I’ve gone on rants about this before, but honestly, fuckin’ honestly, what is the appeal? I understand not hating this kind of scene – maybe if these kinds of scenes really scare you for whatever reason. Maybe if you are actually the son of Satan yourself, hissing at the cross, that would scare you. Otherwise I just don’t see it.

Worst frat party hazing ever.

The scene is overly long and cluttered, with maybe a couple nice shots I guess – but mostly it’s pretty weak. There’s some crap shoved in about how the possessed wife has to remember this one really nice day at the beach with her family – this day she apparently said she would never forget.

And nobody is wearing a swimsuit for some reason.

It’s just so forced and contrived – those are the only words. What do we know about this character? She likes the beach. What does that tell us about her personality? She … likes the beach. What relevance does that have to the overall meaning of the story or of her character arc? She likes the fucking beach! God! Can’t you deliver one thing of substance?

Eh, I guess not. Just have a bland happy ending scene of the family hugging out in the sunlight. Because horror movies always have happy endings.

Wait, no they don’t. That’s pretty much the cincher on why this sucks: name one good horror movie with a totally happy ending like this one. I mean it really fucking is – it’s wrapped up nice and neat in a pink bow with a complimentary box of Peeps along with it and a note from the Easter Bunny. There’s no darkness here! Where’s the foreboding and the fear? Name one horror movie that’s any good, that ends in a happy-go-lucky manner like this one does.

Maybe the reasoning for this was the “Based on a True Story” tagline. But really, if the defense is “oh, they’re keeping it true to the original family” – well, no, that is not an excuse at all. You clearly showed no regard for any semblance of reality when you included the exorcism scenes with the screamy bloody ghosts and rolled-backwards eyes. I don’t care how people remembered it in real life – the way it’s presented here is just like any other craptastic exorcism horror film. Not real life.

Frankly, I think this got it closer to real life:

Images copyright of their original owners, I own none of them.

The Month of Terror: House of Wax (2005)

Well, I knew it would come to this eventually...reviewing the movie that everyone knows not for its ridiculous plot and contrived story, but for the fact that Paris Hilton had a supporting role in it. Yes, House of Wax! And you'll be surprised to know, if you aren't familiar with this ridiculous carnivalesque sideshow of fecal garbage, that the fact that Paris Hilton is in this movie is the least silly thing about it. Yes, the least silly thing, indeed. Intrigued?

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra

Starring: Paris Hilton!

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397065/

The film starts off in the best way possible, with a flashback! We see a woman making wax sculptures, and then a guy dragging his kicking and screaming son into the room, despite the latter’s attempts at fighting back with everything he has. You know it’s good to see such good taste even in little kids – even at age 3 he knew he didn’t want to ruin his career by being in this movie! Maybe he’ll go somewhere, someday.

So on Bland White People Horror Movie News, we flash to the present day, where a bunch of ignorant jackasses are undergoing the epic journey of going to a football game! Enthralling! They’re hanging out at a gas station and we learn that Elisha Cuthbert’s character Carly has a boyfriend, Wade (Jared Padalecki) who really doesn’t like her brother Nick, played by Chad Michael Murray. We also learn that Paris Hilton is Paige, a girl who doesn’t want to tell her boyfriend Blake that she’s pregnant. Tune in for more Bland White People Horror Movie News in…well, probably a few seconds.

"By golly, this is the FIRST time I've ever been caught on tape doing anything!"

Ha-ha! She looked like she was getting a blowjob in the car but really she was just getting her keys...right…sure...exactly.

Aaaaand after that quick break, we’re back to Bland White People Horror Movie News! So they camp out and whine and moan about stuff some more, and Nick and Carly fight some more, to which we learn that he was arrested for stealing a car and blames her for not covering for him…so glad this guy is one of our heroes, right? Carly talks to Paris Hilton (yes, I know she has a character name, but I’m just going to call her that anyway) some more about the pregnancy thing. By God this is bland! The uninspiring-ness is just off the charts with this! Bland White People Horror Movie News is going to be the most popular news station ever at this rate!

Oh, and for some reason the camera switches to a home-video style camcorder…why? There’s really no reason for this, aside from a throwaway gore moment way later on in the film. Movie, having a point isn’t that hard. Why do you try to make it look that way?

So not to break from the cuh-raaaazeee fun we’ve been having, but the plot crashes in to ruin it when a big truck drives up and sits there staring at them for pretty much no reason. Nick throws a rock at it, and…it drives away. Hmmm. Then they go to bed until Carly wakes up and thinks there’s something out there, only to find out that it was just her boyfriend Wade doing a stupid jump scare to pad out the movie. Aren’t you glad the 2-hour, yes, 2-hour, runtime included important and vital scenes like this?

"Didja like that? How I snuck up on you from behind and scared you in the middle of the night like a common creeper? I'm just preparing you for defending yourself. Yeah that's it."

Then the next morning they wake up and Carly and Paris Hilton smell something awful right on the other side of some trees, which turns out to be a giant landfill full of dead animals. Yeah, pretty sure they’d be able to smell that from their campsite, movie. What, do the trees just block out the smell entirely? And then Carly succumbs to the hallowed ‘Lake Placid 2’ method of standing up, and falls right down the hill and into a pile of deer droppings. I haven’t been this endeared by a battle of man VS nature since Jack London’s ”To Build a Fire.” Glorious.

So yeah, then we get this guy, who picks up a plastic hand in the dead animal remains and says “Need a hand?” I’m so glad we have writers on the same level of comedic talent as Mel Brooks and the Coen brothers…oh wait, today ISN’T opposite day.

"I'm shooting for a Comedy Central spot next time!"

He takes them to fix Wade’s car or something, only they get freaked out and walk the rest of the way, offending him. Again, such endearing characters! I like them as much as I’ve ever liked any characters in a slasher movie…which is to say, about as much as being forced to eat horse manure. And if you think you’ve seen this kind of character, this seedy country bumpkin crazy character, in every single Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie before, and if you think that means this movie has no originality or shame, well shut up, your opinion isn’t worth anything here!

So then they decide to go explore the city’s wax museum, and for some reason Wade is really excited by this…I guess he’d be excited about anything at this rate. Hell, he’d probably react with just as much enthusiasm if you told him you were taking him to a museum of fly excrement. They walk around and talk about dumb stuff to pad out the movie some more. They run into a guy named Bo, who I’m sure doesn’t raise ANY SUSPICION by being the only normal, living person seen in this town – oh no, nothing strange about that at all…but of course the characters buy it, being raging morons.

While going to the bathroom before supposedly leaving, Wade gets killed and taken to an underground wax factory to be turned into a human wax sculpture! Of course! The prime motive for ANY serial killer! I mean, wow; that’s pretty frigging creative, don’t you think? Most other movies just have the killers torturing and raping their victims, but not these guys; oh no. They go full out and have all this complex machinery around to turn their victims into wax sculptures and everything. I mean, Christ, that’s really specific stuff! It should probably be put on one of those abstract fetish websites or something. Tell me you’ve found a weirder premise for a slasher movie and I’ll sell you my dog.

...I think the pictures speak for themselves. The SAW movies look positively bereft for ideas in comparison.

Somebody give these guys a gold star for creativity. I mean, they already found a way to mummify people perfectly in wax just by spraying it on them enough, and they go even further by wiring them up to gears to make them move, having them sit in a movie theater playing an old movie that nobody watches anymore, and all kinds of other nonsense. Hell. The only thing they don’t do is kidnap women in parking garages in extremely contrived schemes that…OK, I’m getting over it.

But yeah, that’s the big plot behind this – a crazy family kidnaps unsuspecting roadside victims and does gory stuff to them. If you think that sounds like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, well, you’d be right. It’s like Texas Chainsaw Massacre except…well, no; there is no difference. This is about as blatant a ripoff as you can get. I’m surprised they didn’t just rip off the logo, too.

And look at our killer!

Does he look familiar? Hmmmm? That’s right – Michael Myers. It’s ripping off the plot for Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the image of the killer from Halloween. Christ. This is like watching a third grader’s bad fanfiction. Here’s a hint for you: just taking random stuff from totally unrelated franchises, and adding an infamously slutty actress that nobody will ever take seriously, isn’t exactly the path to a great horror flick. You might as well have just thrown in a bad comedian while you were at it. I mean, you had every other damn cliché in the book.

So meanwhile in the actual film, Bo ties up Carly in the basement of his gas station and actually goes so far as to glue her lips shut. Why he didn’t just use the tape…ooooh, shock value, shock value! That’s about all you need. But meanwhile her brother and his friend find the town and split up, cause that’s the smartest thing to do in a horror movie, and the friend gets killed almost immediately. Surprise, surprise; the random character who did nothing else in the entire movie got killed off…can you feel my excitement emanating through the screen?

The brother has a little more luck though, as he finds Carly! But not before Bo cuts her finger off with a small tool. No, sorry; not buying that one. It wouldn’t just snap off like you’re cutting a twig in half. It would also be very noticeable to the guy standing right behind you, who you don’t want to find your captive. But he does find her, and they escape! Bo chases them around for a while, but they shoot him with a few arrows, so it’s all good.

Meanwhile, the other brother, the Michael Myers-mask-wearing killer, somehow finds the other two characters that never even made it to the town. Why? Because we need more body count, and with Paris Hilton being a part of it, you know it’s gonna be good. All I have to say about this part is, if Paris Hilton can almost outrun and put up a better fight than you…you need to get on the Stairmaster more than once a millennium.

You know, I could make so many jokes. But I bet they've all already been done anyway...

Then inside the house, Carly and Nick find some old photos of the two brothers as kids, because that’s the only way the writers could think of to pad out the movie some more. Then they get chased around some more and start a fire in the house, and since the house is made out of all wax, it starts to melt into…one of the most original and unique ending scenes I’ve seen in a horror movie lately.

I can’t say I like it – it looks something like Paris Hilton’s plastic surgery factory caught on fire – but it certainly is interesting. It goes on a little too long, though. I mean, there’s really only so much you can do with shots of a whole house of wax melting in flames…it’s a pretty specific phenomenon. So they make it out and all, only for the police to find out that the creepy guy from the beginning of the movie was also a brother of the two wax-idiots…which doesn’t make any goddamn sense. Where was he the whole rest of the movie? Is he just the odd man out that neither of the other two like or include in their plans? Why didn’t he help them at all?

Yeah, this sucks. The characters are cardboard cutouts that somehow manage to be extra annoying, the plot is stupidly specific and there’s just no logic to any of it. Some of the visuals were creative and every once in a while I got a sense of real fear, but it was just so bogged down in stupidity and lameness that I couldn’t forgive it. So with that, I banish House of Wax to the incinerator!