Jaume Collet-Serra’s glossy 2005 slasher remake remains an empty vessel — preserved only by Paris Hilton’s headline-making death scene.

Time can be kind to horror. Cult classics rise from the ashes of critical scorn, reputations rehabilitate, and even the cheesiest slashers earn nostalgic affection. But House of Wax (2005), Jaume Collet-Serra’s glossy, grimy remake of the 1953 Vincent Price classic (itself a remake), remains stubbornly embalmed in mediocrity.

Released in the mid-2000s horror boom — where slick aesthetics and disposable casts were the norm — House of Wax offered little beyond surface-level thrills. A group of attractive, personality-deficient teens become stranded near a creepy roadside attraction, only to discover the wax figures inside were once living people. What follows is a tired parade of genre clichés, vapid character development, and an overlong runtime that melts what little tension ever existed.

Most remember the film not for its suspense or horror, but for Paris Hilton’s much-hyped on-screen death — a moment so cynically marketed that it became the film’s entire selling point. Ironically, Hilton ends up being one of the more memorable parts of the film, simply by virtue of being a cultural lightning rod. The rest of the cast — including a pre-Supernatural Jared Padalecki and Elisha Cuthbert — do what they can with a script that barely gives them anything to work with.

To Collet-Serra’s credit, the production design is occasionally striking. The titular house of wax itself is grotesquely fascinating, and there’s a certain warped artistry in the film’s finale, as it literally burns and collapses around the surviving characters. But by then, it’s too late — the film has already drowned in a pool of derivative ideas, manufactured edge, and PG-13 posturing disguised as R-rated grit.

The Prognosis:

Two decades on, House of Wax isn’t exactly worth scraping from the bottom of the wax vat. It’s not so-bad-it’s-good, nor is it completely unwatchable — just forgettable, slickly packaged horror that’s all sheen and no soul.

• Saul Muerte