House of Wax (2005)

House of Wax is a 2005 American-Australian slasher film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and stars Elisha Cuthbert, Chad Michael Murray, Brian Van Holt, Paris Hilton, Jared Padalecki, Jon Abrahams and Robert Ri'chard. It is based on a story by Charles Belden. It is a loose remake of the 1953 film of the same name, itself a remake of the 1933 movie Mystery of the Wax Museum.

The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was released in US theaters on May 6, 2005.

Storyline
Carly (Elisha Cuthbert), her boyfriend Wade (Jared Padalecki), her brother Nick (Chad Michael Murray), her best friend Paige (Paris Hilton), Paige's boyfriend Blake (Robert Ri'chard) and Nick's friend Dalton (Jon Abrahams) are on their way to a football game in Louisiana. The night before, the group set up camp in an abandoned field. A stranger in a pickup truck arrives and does nothing, then leaves when Nick smashes one of his headlights with a beer bottle.

During the night, the group are recorded sleeping on Dalton's video camera, then Carly hears noises outside her tent but dismisses them. The next morning, Wade discovers that his car's fan belt is broken. Carly and Paige wander into the woods, where Carly falls down a hill and into a pit filled with rotting animal carcasses. After rescuing her, the group meet a strange man named Lester (Damon Herriman), who offers to drive Carly and Wade to the nearby town of Ambrose to get a new fan belt, while the rest of them go to the football game.

Nick, Dalton, Paige, and Blake realize they will not arrive at the game in time due to traffic; The two arrive at Ambrose, which is virtually a ghost town. Unable to find a gas station attendant, they wander into the local church, disrupting a funeral. There, they meet a mechanic named Bo (Brian Van Holt), who offers to sell them a fan belt after the funeral. While they wait, Carly and Wade visit "Trudy's House of Wax", a wax museum which itself is made of wax and is the central feature of the town. In a mirror reflection, Carly sees a person that quickly disappears but Wade convinces her it is just a wax figure. The gas station does not have the right size fan belt, so they follow Bo to his house to get one.

Inside, Wade is attacked and knocked out by Bo's twin brother, Vincent (also Brian Van Holt), who wears a wax mask to cover his disfigured face, since they were once conjoined as children. Outside, Carly notices a broken headlight on Bo's truck and realizes he is the one who visited the campsite. Nick and Dalton go to Ambrose while Paige and Blake return to camp. Meanwhile, Vincent strips Wade naked and straps him to a chair, where he is both injected with and covered in molten wax. She initially escapes from Bo but is later captured; he restrains her in the cellar of the gas station, with her lips glued shut.

Nick visits the gas station, where he meets Bo and questions him about Carly's whereabouts. When she tries to gain Nick's attention, Bo cuts off half of Carly's finger, but she manages to tear her glued lips apart and shrieks for help. Nick fends off Bo and frees Carly. Meanwhile, Dalton finds Wade, who is still alive but unable to move because of the wax. Dalton attempts to free Wade by peeling off the wax, but unintentionally removing his skin in the process. Vincent finds Dalton and, after a chase through the museum, he catches Dalton and beheads him with a pair of garden shears. Meanwhile, Nick and Carly realize that all the town's inhabitants are real people covered in wax; Bo and Vincent have been luring people in and covering them in wax to make the figures look more realistic.

Back at the campsite, Vincent arrives and kills Blake, then chases Paige to an abandoned sugar mill, where he throws a metal pipe through her forehead. Nick and Carly return to the house to find Wade and Dalton dead. When Bo and Vincent return, they chase Carly and Nick to the House of Wax. It is revealed that Bo is the "evil" twin and Vincent is the "good" twin; following their parents' death, Bo has been controlling the more mild-mannered Vincent through physical and verbal abuse. After a chase, Carly viciously beats Bo to death with a baseball bat. Nick unintentionally sets the House of Wax on fire and the figures start to melt, as does the entire museum. Enraged by his brother's death, Vincent chases Carly to the top floor, but Nick attacks him, allowing Carly to stab him. His body falls through the floor, landing on top of his brother Bo's corpse. Carly and Nick escape the House of Wax as it melts to the ground.

The next day, the police arrive and report that Ambrose has been abandoned for ten years since the local sugar mill failed. As Nick and Carly are taken to a hospital, the Sheriff learns that Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair had a third son. From inside the ambulance, Carly spots Lester (supposedly the third brother) with the Sinclair dog, waving them goodbye as the van leaves the town.