Spanish filmmaker Víctor Matellano’s Wax bears more similarity to 1953’s classic House of Wax than 2005’s official remake. With one foot planted firmly in horror cinema’s past, Matellano uses his other to sidestep between the decidedly more contemporary subgenres of found footage and torture porn. There’s room for all — perhaps even too much, as not enough time is allocated to each or any.
What is in too-great supply are the unruly curls atop the head of journalist Mike (Jimmy Shaw, Lord of Illusions), a dead ringer for Simply Red lead singer Mick Hucknall. Eager for cash, Mike is hired by a TV producer (Geraldine Chaplin, 2010’s The Wolfman) to spend the night — if he can! — in a reportedly haunted Barcelona wax museum. Hence the title and all.
Mike’s still grieving over the murder of his wife and child by kidnapper-cum-cannibal Dr. Knox (Jack Taylor, Succubus) a year prior and — wouldn’t you know it? — the sinister senior surgeon lurks and stalks the halls after hours. In the basement is where the old man carries out his acts of Hostel behavior on his victims (most of them bare-breasted young women), keeping them sedated just enough for them to withstand the pain of being eaten alive as they watch.
Essentially, we have three distinct styles of shock shoehorned into a film that feels like it can’t pay homage to one without placating today’s audiences with doses of the others. Because of that, Wax fails to truly take hold, although it comes close. Still, if you are a fan of movies set in wax museums — and this one takes a meta step to share that pleasure — the film is worth the price of admission, and the feature-debuting Matellano proves himself as a talent to watch. Just don’t be suckered into a rental because of the touting of late Spanish fright-flick legend Paul Naschy high atop the credits; only his voice appears, none of it recorded for this low-budget, high-ambition project. —Rod Lott