INTRODUCTION
I mark the denouement of the first classic period of horror or dark fantasy cinema (rather arbitrarily I must admit) with the last gasp of the Universal franchise in 1948 with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. In fact, the demise of Universal had little effect on the, less prolific but often more skillful, efforts of studios like RKO, Warner Brothers and Paramount. However, after 1945 and for several years the horror genre seemed to wane almost to extinction whilst the divergent trends of film noir and the science fiction film, propelled by the fears and dreams of the nuclear age, held the stage. The stark power of nuclear weapons and the uneasy quiet of the Cold War in time rekindled the old fires of the horror cinema, but the world was less innocent, harder and more grim than the world which entered World War Two. A segment of society was convinced finally of the bleakness of the future and horror films became again a mystery play providing a catharsis for the post-war age.
As in the first classic period, the renaissance of horror was led by a production studio, or in this case two studios: American International Pictures (AIP) and Hammer Films. Names like Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee emerged as the new masters of the genre. In the US, a young film maker gradually evolved from the creator of low-budget B-movies during the early 1950s into the preeminent American auteur of the genre during the mid-`60s. That man was Roger Corman and he invested the canon with a host of original classics in his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft stories. In the UK, for the first time a studio name became associated with the genre, as Hammer recreated the classics of Universal and then produced new classics of its own. Ofttimes overlooked in the shadow of Hammer, the other British studio famous for horror, Amicus Films, also produced a number of excellent contributions.
By the close of this second classic era, the horror film in its traditional aspects had lost its force of effect with audiences. The Gothic no longer seemed to speak to the increasingly discordant, technologically challenged and violently dissolute state of society. Just as the traditional values of society were being cast aside, so also was the traditional form of the horror film. Incipient evidence of this transition as a purely artistic development can be seen as early as 1961, but the motive force for the final change began around 1968. By 1974, the first renaissance of horror had ended.
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HOUSE OF WAX
- Rating
- Film Production Credits
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Release Date: |
1953
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Produced by: |
Warner Brothers, Inc.
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Directed by: |
Andre De Toth
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Other:
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- Cast of Characters
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Vincent Price |
Professor Jarrod
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Phyllis Kirk |
Sue Allan
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Paul Picerni |
Scott Andrews
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Frank Lovejoy |
Lt. Tom Brennan
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Carolyn Jones |
Cathy Gray
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Charles Bronson |
Igor
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- Synopsis and Commentary
A crippled artist in wax reopens his renowned museum and seeks the perfect model to embody his Marie Antoinette. This is the remake of the original Mystery of the Wax Museum and is Vincent Price's second role in the genre that made him famous (he first appeared a decade before in The Invisible Man Returns). He had been a secondary leading man, usually playing a somewhat devious and sinister, if suave and romantic, rascal. Possibly Price's finest performance, it is certainly the first one with which I associated his name, owing to my Mom's gleeful depiction of its bloodcurdling aspects (see, I told you she was ghoulish!). House of Wax was produced as the second 3-D feature film and has a few gimmicks like things flying at the audience, which are quaint in retrospect, and (apart from the terrifying sequence where Vincent Price skulks through the foggy streets after the heroine) I think it is less frightening than the original. None of that should sound like criticism, for this is a great film. Charles Bronson (as Charles Buchinsky) plays the Professor's deaf mute minion.
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