House of Wax was one of the first films marketed as more of an 'event' than just a movie- it promised audiences something they'd never seen before. Prior to this release, the only way to see House of Wax at home in 3D was via the now-defunct VHD videodisc format which was released only in Japan during the 1980s and had this as well as a few other 1950s and 80s 3D movies in a field-sequential format which was adequate but had a flickery picture that halved the already limited resolution of standard-definition video (and this 3D method will not work on modern HDTVs due to the way they de-interlace standard-def pictures.) Warner put a lot of work into the film's restoration this time, including 4K scans of the YCM positive protection masters (the original negative was too badly damaged but these elements proved capable of producing the fantastic presentation we see here). The main reason to celebrate this Blu-Ray release though is that it presents the movie in 3D. I won't spoil the surprises here, but House of Wax is a classic film even if you disregard its technical merits. Both of their corpses then mysteriously disappear from the morgue, and when Sue visits the new House of Wax's grand opening she is shocked to find that the wax figure of Joan of Arc bears a striking resemblance to Cathy, and there's also a wax depiction of Matthew Burke's self-hanging that looks remarkably realistic.

Shortly after that Cathy is discovered dead by her roommate Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk). Meanwhile Burke is spending his money with girlfriend Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones), but he soon turns up dead and the police consider it a suicide. He can't use his hands much since they were burned, so he enlists a number of artists to make new wax figures for him (one of them is a deaf mute man named Igor, played by Charles Buchinsky who would become better known as Charles Bronson.) This time he decides to give the people what they want and make his museum more of a 'chamber of horrors', with depictions of famous murderers and torturers such as William Kemmler, the first person to be executed by electric chair. He pretends to not remember what happened, but decides to open a new museum. Later however, Jarrod turns up very much alive, though in a wheelchair and badly burned. Burke gets out alive and Jarrod is presumed dead. Jarrod of course is shocked at this given the personal attachment he's formed with his work, but Burke goes ahead and sets a fire anyways and knocks Jarrod out when he tries to stop him. Burke, being in it only for the money, decides he wants out and when Jarrod can't find anyone else to buy out his share of the museum right away he says they should just stage a fire and burn the place down, as their insurance would give them enough money to go their separate ways. While Jarrod does have a scene depicting Abraham Lincoln's assassination, he still prefers to produce more 'beautiful' works and refuses to pander to audiences who would rather be shocked than appreciate his artistry. He tells Jarrod that other museums in town have attracted more business by presenting more sensational attractions, such as murder scenes and depictions of torture, and suggests Jarrod take his work more in that direction. Burke however complains that their museum isn't getting enough business. Jarrod does this for the pure joy of it, taking a Gepetto-like approach to his creations considering them as his 'children'. In New York circa 1910, he creates wax statues primarily of historical figures such as Marie Antoinette and other royalty for a museum he runs with business partner Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts).

used the same 'Natural Vision' 3D dual-camera rig used by Bwana Devil to shoot House of Wax, the first major-studio 3D production which solidified the 3D movie boom of the period.īased primarily on Warner's earlier Mystery of the Wax Museum released in 1933, House of Wax stars Vincent Price as Henry Jarrod which was a role that began his ascent to becoming a horror movie icon. This was an independent production, but its success caught the attention of the bigger studios who figured that 3D was just the thing they needed to pry people away from their two-dimensional black and white TVs. In late 1952, the very first widely released feature film shot in 3D, Bwana Devil, proved to be a huge success. As the story goes, movie attendance was declining in the early 1950s due to a new invention called television, and studios were searching desperately for ways to get people back into theaters. While 3D has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years which brought forth the highest-quality home 3D format available to view these recent movies, 1953 was still the biggest year in 3D movie history. If the year 2013 isn't remembered for anything else, it will be for when my decades-long wait for a high-quality 3D home edition of 1953's House of Wax was finally over.

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