I've seen enough horror movies to be a skeptic. When House of Wax presented itself and focused on its casting of Paris Hilton, I groaned and decided to skip it in theatres. Now it's on DVD, and I'm willing to give it a try. Last night, alone at Marc's house, waiting to pick him up from work, I sat back with popcorn and Raisinets and braced myself for an incompetent stab at horror. haha, stab. To my surprise, this movie avoided nearly every cliche in the genre and turned out to be a scary, enjoyable film.
Above all, I hate characters that act irrationally. Fear is a powerful tool. It gives us the ability to do things we never thought we could do. It does NOT make us unable to do anything but accept our grisly fate. Girls are NOT only good at screaming at the top of their lungs. Bad guys, especially ones that are human, are NOT invincible or even that strong. You can at LEAST put up a fight against them. You can outsmart them. You can defeat them. This movie has some of the smartest, most attentive, most resourceful teenagers I've seen in movies lately. They stick together, for one. They fight back competently. They don't make stupid, dangerous decisions like letting a stranger help too much, intruding on private ceremonies, or leaving their friends behind. You can root for these people because they give you reason to root for them.
Best of all, the movie doesn't capitalize on tired shock moments. For example, a hand is sticking up out of the ground. You wait for the gruesome shot of the whole body accompanied by a sudden cacophony of sounds to aid in scaring you. Instead, the hand is from a mannequin. Or consider a knife pulled out as a stranger goes to open the door of your car. As soon as that door opens, he's going to run that knife into your belly inside the car - but wait, he opens the door and steps aside for you to leave...and let's you go. This movie surprised me by not stooping to the level of typical horror/slasher movies. It had a heart. Well, considering. For example, the heroine takes the time to understand one of the killers and pleads with him to not kill her. She understands him and pities his situation.
Finally, it does what any good, competent horror film should do. It answers the question we are all wondering about, how did no one know about these crazy people? And it leaves a nice, little cliffhanger, just something to wonder about after the main storyline has finished.