House of Wax: Or, The Evil Dead meets Cabin Fever meets Scream meets your mom, and she's not the mom you remember.

What a bizarre weekend. I spent Friday night in the snack bar studying with Em until 4 in the morning, slept till 11, putzed around a bit, and then decided it'd be a good idea to go see "House of Wax." Why? Because if there's one thing that scares me -- and there is -- it's finding myself in the middle of nowhere in an abandoned town that [attention, Joe Jordan] isn't even on the GPS, can you imagine it? with a pregnant Paris Hilton, Tiger Woods, an ambiguously gay guy, two football heroes/WB stars, and Elisha Cuthbert, or Cubert, or whatever her name is, only to find that the entire town is controlled by murderous former Siamese twins with a penchant for candles. Come on, that's every American's fear, and you know it; and if you know me at all, you know I face my fears head on. Cough.

So to the movie I went with companions in tow, and I do believe it was not a waste of $9. Sure, the whole thing could have used a tree rape a la Sam Raimi's aforementioned masterpiece, The Evil Dead; but Paris Hilton totally took a stake to the head, and if you listened very closely you could almost hear the air escaping from the back of her skull. I really think everyone came away a winner in this one: Krish was happy because there were some scenic shots of Louisiana. Remmington was happy because there was roadkill. (I actually don't know if roadkill makes Remmington happy, but fishing does -- and that's saying something.) Jillian M. was happy because Jillian M. is always happy. Sheridan was happy because Paris Hilton, in the words of Maura, "couldn't emote her way out of a paper bag." Travis was happy because the hero, played by the strangely-formed Chad Michael Murray, was a Republican. We knew this because CM Squared exits a convenience story early on in story, kicks a donation cup out of a homeless guy's hand, and tells him to "get a job." On its own, that's just mean; but then we find that CM Squared's parents have just posted his bail for stealing a car, that he can't hold down a job for more than two weeks, that he lost a football scholarship because of the arrest, and that he's allegedly Elisha Cuthbert's "bad twin." Nothing says "Republican" like Mommy and Daddy covering your overprivileged butt: I almost expected CM Squared to stage an invasion of Iraq in the last ten minutes of the movie.

I don't know if Greg was happy, but what can you do?

For a Dark Castle production, the plot and cinematography were surprisingly superb. Observe:

- The microphone was only visible in six separate frames.
- The script never introduced a plot device that went nowhere...unless you count Paris Hilton mentioning that she was maybe just a little bit pregnant and then never telling her boyfriend and/or the Siamese guy to have mercy for the sake of her baby, or the mysterious significance of a third brother, or the reason the fan belt broke, or the reason there was sexual tension between a brother and sister, or the significance of having one pair of twins kill another, or what happened between 1974 and 2005 that made Bo Sinclair a ragin' Cajun, or why no one convinced Paris to take off her wig for the movie, or what happened to the twins' dog, or what happened to the twins' father, or why you'd run UP the stairs in a house of wax that you knew to be on fire, or why there weren't hotter guys in this movie, seriously.
- All of the major players were there: the token black guy, token hick, token ambiguously gay guy, token jock, token bimbo, token WB actor. Oh, and token Eliza Cuthbert, or Dushku, or whatever her name is.

SPOILER ALERT: Reasons to see this movie are legion. Recommended viewing for future surgeons, Siamese twins contemplating separation, Yankee Candle store managers, sheriff's department of Louisiana, WB starlets, Chad Michael Murray (dude: CHECK YOUR POSTURE), all roadkill, and the American Red Cross, who should be concerned about the poor quality of first aid administered here and its effect on impressionable youth. [Kids, I don't care what your Auntie Paris tells you: if you get shot in the left arm with a crossbow, do not remove the arrow. Instead, pack gauze around it to stabilize the arrow as it's probably the only thing that's keeping you from bleeding to death, keep your arm elevated so blood flows to your heart, get yourself to a hospital, and kill your last victim later.]