House of Wax (1953): B-

The first major studio production filmed in 3-D, André de Toth’s House of Wax wastes an idiotic amount of time showing off its then-nifty special effects (were two appearances by the man with the ping-pong paddle really necessary?). But as was so often the case, Vincent Price brings a touch of creepy class to this otherwise middling B-level horror story. A wax sculptor who loves beauty and loathes exhibitions that depict murder and mayhem, Henry Jarrod (Price) undergoes a monstrous transformation after he is disfigured in a fire started by his insurance money-craving partner. Emerging from the inferno as a maniac with a ghoulish new House of Wax featuring historical and contemporary villains (and Charles Bronson as his sidekick Igor!), Jarrod takes a liking to sweet, financially strapped Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk), who suspects that Jarrod’s Joan of Arc exhibit has been made with the corpse of her recently murdered friend Cathy (Carolyn Jones). Because we’re intimately aware of Jarrod’s cadaver-fueled waxadermic activities, de Toth doesn’t generate much suspense from his scenario (based on 1933’s Mystery of the Wax Museum). Still, the campy Price, skulking around the nighttime city clothed in a black cloak and hat (an outfit later worn by Sam Raimi’s Darkman), is nonetheless devilishly charismatic as the emotionally and psychologically scarred artist-turned-serial killer.