The Scoop on "House of Wax:" While the 1953 3-D "House of Wax" horror film centered around a wheelchair-bound professor who fills his wax museum with real dead bodies covered in wax, the 2005 version follows a group of teenagers who discover something evil while passing through a tiny town on their way to a football game.
What appealed to you about the character of Carly?
ELISHA CUTHBERT: The character was most appealing at first because I was coming off of “The Girl Next Door,” which sort of was a great first film for me, but I wanted to do something extremely different. And when Joel brought me “House of Wax,” I thought this is perfect because the genre is different, the idea is different, and the character is nothing like Danielle in “The Girl Next Door.”
We kind of created Carly in the sense that she was a lot more tomboyish, not so particularly pretty – but pretty in her own way - and a little bit more together and driven. So that was sort of the basis of Carly. And I liked the idea of the brother figure, the boyfriend figure, and then sort of her own personality within this huge group of teenage kids coming together, which was kind of nice.
What’s the appeal of William Castle’s work?
JOEL SILVER: I mean, I love what he did. When I was a kid I saw the movies and I remember one of my [production] designers, Mike Reva, actually saw “House on Haunted Hill” in the theater when the actual cardboard skeleton went on a string and for weeks he couldn’t function. But I just think they were the pure essence of what the horror movies could be. They didn’t have a lot of money. It was all about the ideas and about the promotion, which was a very important part of it too. And I just like horror pictures. I’m a big fan of horror movies. I love that genre and I like to always be involved in them. We started “Tales from the Crypt” in ’89 on HBO and did 93 ½ hours there. When Bob [Zemeckis] and I decided to continue on with Dark Castle, we really want to water this garden. We want to really work in this genre and try to do one or two every year. This is our fifth one – “House of Wax.” It is definitely the best. It is the best we did. It came out fantastic.
What makes it the best? What sets it apart?
JOEL SILVER: I don’t know. Jaume [Serra] is really talented. This young guy is really good. We didn’t do kind of a ‘teen horror film’ at Dark Castle up to now. We didn’t do one. We didn’t want to replicate “Scream” or “I Saw What You Did.” We really wanted to stay away from that, but the studio really wanted us to try to work with “House of Wax.” They loved that title. And they have this notion of intellectual property there – at Warner Bros. – where they like to kind of work with their own material. They said, “Why don’t you try to do ‘House of Wax?’” And we heard like 60 concepts for the movie and they were all s**t. And when this one came along, it ended up being kind of a ‘young people in jeopardy’ story, but it worked for us. But we really wanted to… How do I say this nicely? We really wanted to fill it with actors who could really perform the roles. The only one who is a wild card is Paris [Hilton], and she really pulls it off.
ELISHA CUTHBERT: And I can agree to that.
JOEL SILVER: But Elisha and Chad [Michael Murray] are both, you know, really good. I showed the movie to the studio yesterday and they just were over the moon. I mean, they kept saying to me, “How tall is Elisha? Is she really [that tall]?” People say she’s short but she doesn’t look short because the movie is really impressive. Chad and Elisha are really awesome in the picture.
In working with a celebrity figure like Paris Hilton, was that more difficult?
ELISHA CUTHBERT: I assumed it was going to be. We talked about it a little bit and she knows this, too, because I told her the story. I thought, “Oh my God, what’s going to happen? What are we going to do?” And she got there and I can’t say one bad thing about her. She was there on time, she did a great job. She looked good and she was a blast to hang out with and shoot the movie with. I can’t imagine anyone else being in the film except her for Paige.
JOEL SILVER: It has a unique structure. They really only have one or two sequences where they’re all together and then that’s it. They’re never together again. Look, Elisha anchors the picture. You’re with her and you stay with her. She’s the star of the movie and is incredible. And Chad, who plays her brother, which is a little unusual too for these kinds of pictures. They end up being together in the movie, but you’re following her in the picture.
