House of Wax

I like a horror movie every now and then. There's been a dearth of acceptable ones lately.

This one was different. The setup's the same, and you know when somebody's about to get killed, but I didn't end up hating the cast. Usually, horror movie victims, they deserve to die either for being too stupid or too unlikeable in the first place.

These characters just showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time. I wanted them to live even though most of them don't make it.

Elisha Cuthbert's performance was excellent, just as Jessica Biel was in the remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Chad Michael Murray's role I liked as well. They both play ordinary characters dealing with a dire situation, but doing so in a credible, intelligent manner (e.g. they don't run around screaming for the duration of the money, only parts of it). The movie starts out slow but picks up the 2nd hour...there's a lot of moments with chilling, atmospheric intensity.

and I have to say...I thought they ran out of ways to creatively kill people in this genre, but I saw a variation yesterday. And it was nasty enough to keep me awake last night after the film, thinking, "that's got to be such a horrible way to go."