I have always felt that in the shadow cast by Cushing and Lee one of the truly greats gets forgotten, even by me. That great is Vincent Price. For a while Price meant horror to me and to the entire world. Even when he was reduced to playing "Vincent Van Ghoul" for the most anemic of all the Scooby Doo series.
But not in this masterpiece, and it was Vincent Price that introduced movie going audiences to 3D.
But don't blame him for that.
House of Wax (1953)
In what must be the spiritual decedent of the Phantom of the Opera and the demented God Father of Price's later Dr. Phibes, Prof. Harry Jarrod is a demented, twisted, scarred man with a vision. His vision is make the best wax museum in the world even if he has to cover his victims in wax to preserve them forever. Its a crazy vision, but a vision all the same.
House of Wax though does suffer through some silly 3D gimmicks and suffers through some 50s steroetypes, but I can ignore these or be amused.
Really we have Price here at his best, a subtle mix of his more serious tone and his hammy best.
This movie also featured a young Charles Bronson as the mute Igor. It was also a remake of the 1933 "Mystery of the Wax Museum" and was remade in 2005. Of that movie we will not speak of.
Like most of the classics, I saw this one years and years ago.
Tally 10 movies, 8 new.
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