House of Wax Interviews: Jaume Serra (Director), Joel Silver (Producer)

Q: What did Serra have on hand as far as reels, to show you he could do this feature for you?

Silver: It wasn’t that much. But you saw the movie, and he did a great job. I mean, he did a great job. I’d seen a bunch of his commercials and videos, and I was impressed with them. But [mostly] I was impressed with him. I sat down with him, and he had great ideas and briefly explained how he wanted to do the movie and he did a perfect job. I couldn’t be happier with it — this movie is exactly what I wanted it to be. It’s a great, fun, cool kind of teen slasher movie. That’s exactly what we wanted it to do. He delivered.

Q: What were some specific challenges on the movie, in terms of the wax?

Serra: It was very difficult. The wax was… well, everything went perfect with [shooting] the movie until we started with the wax. I’m pretty experienced in commercials and music videos and things like that, so I know the techniques, but wax is a completely different medium. The fact that it’s supposed to be melting, and to capture that state in-between solid and liquid, without melting the actors at the same time is very difficult.

Silver: That last reel, it looks like this house was coming down. I mean, it’s movie magic but there’s a lot of wax there. It’s not Raiders of the Lost Ark; we don’t have that kind of dough, but we just made it work. I look at that, and I think he did a great job. You do believe that that place is melting around them.

Serra: The special effects people did a great job. They went for every combination of wax and all the things that look like wax. I melted a lot of candles, trying to analyze how it [breaks down]. The idea is, the end of the movie, the last reel, happens inside of a candle. That’s the idea. We all know what it looks like, but it’s very difficult to accomplish that.

Q: What’s the scariest part of the movie, for you personally? [addressed to both, only Silver answered… this happened throughout the interview]

Silver: The last reel, of course. I mean, I… look, these movies are not a gritty kind of supernatural horror — we’ve done them all. This one was designed as a fun movie. A fun horror movie. You want to audience to scream and close their eyes and stuff, but not so much as of eeriness, but kind of a shock. To me, that final reel is pretty intense.

Q: But it’s pretty violent. That scene where Elisha [Cuthbert] is clubbing the killer…

Silver: Yeah. When I was watching The Passion of the Christ, I remember the scenes when he was being… Um, I remember I kind of looked away and I came back and it was still happening. I said, “Let’s do that.” So when we see her hitting him, you kind of say, “OK, enough.” And she’s still hitting him. I thought it was great [laughs].

Q: Joel, what’s your affinity to the Dark Castle style of entertainment?

Silver: I love the horror genre. When we started doing to this, I mean I’m not going to take credit for anything, but the company is Dark Castle. It’s based on an alliance with William Castle, who made these… He didn’t make House of Wax, but he made these movies in the 50s. And there’s been a lot of interest lately. We started making Tales From the Crypt in ’89 on HBO. There was always George Romero and Wes Craven, there were horror directors around, you know. And Sam Raimi did Evil Dead long before he made Spiderman, but I think that you know… I’ve always had a affinity for the horror genre and I am happy that people are doing it now and taking it seriously. It’s not a challenge; I think it’s great. Michael Bay has his company, and Sam Raimi has his, and we have Dark Castle. We’re trying to do one or two a year. There’s a lot more than there were before, but it’s a… When I first came to Hollywood in the ’70s, every summer wasn’t filled with action films, either. It’s just the way the business has evolved and it makes me feel good.

Q: Do you feel a kinship with William Castle, as far as being a producer-slash-showman?

Silver: Well, that was the whole idea. That’s why it’s called Dark Castle. This show that we have on M-TV, it’s just great. Movie Life [a reality show]. It’s just a great show that shows what’s been going on while making the movie, and I think it’s just an interesting promotional tool.

Q: How do you consider whether a horror movie should be rated R or PG-13?

Silver: I made one PG-13 movie in my life: Ritchie Rich. Now that I’m reading about Macaulay Culkin, maybe it wasn’t PG-13! [laughs, and says “Off the record”] But um, we talked about making this a PG-13 movie at one point and we were talking to the MPAA about it and they said to us, “You’re actually taking a human being who’s living and you spray wax on him? That’s an R-rated movie.” So we sent them over the 1953 movie, which we’ve redone by the way, we’re showing it at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in the full, two script, full-on 3-D version… Anyway, they saw that movie and they called and they said, “That’s an R movie too.” 1953? It doesn’t matter if it’s 1853 — it’s an R-rated movie. The concept was such, that we would never be able to do this idea and be PG-13. So we went for it.

Q: Why did you choose to have Brian Van Holt play both twins? I mean, one of the twins is in a mask for most of the movie.

Serra: For me, it was important that he play both characters. Especially because they’re twins and at some point the mask comes off and you see him.

Silver: When we did that effect… Um, I mean, I’ve seen a movie recently where there was a guy wearing a mask and when the mask came off I didn’t think there was anything underneath it. I didn’t think… I’m not saying anything else, but… So we decided, “Look, if we’re going to put a guy in a mask, when that mask comes off we’d better have it mean something.” So, we did.

Q: Jaume, have you been following the film scene in Barcelona?

Serra: I don’t think of myself as a Hollywood director now, but…

Silver: I do!

Serra: …it’s so long. I am following what’s been going on a little bit but it’s been so tough to get where I am I just want to [stay here] and continue this line now.

Silver: We’re doing another film together. It’s called The Divide.

Q: When you know you’re working with a pop culture icon like Paris Hilton and putting her in her first big role, did you tweak the character at all?

Serra: No. I think she fit the character [of Paige] perfectly. I think it was brilliant casting and you know, she, you know, was great and it fits the character. So we didn’t tweak anything.

Silver: You saw the movie. I don’t think you feel that she’s Paris Hilton. I mean, you buy her as the girl. I don’t think she jumps out. She wanted to do this movie. I’ve known her for many years and she wanted to commit to doing something like this and she doesn’t play the lead in the movie. Elisha does a brilliant job in that, but we used her [Hilton] in this role and she’s great. I mean, if you watch the M-TV show you’ll see that she was there the whole time in Australia and she was part of an ensemble cast. She’s terrific. She gets it. This tee-shirt we have, “See Paris Die May 6” — you know. It’s fun.

Q: Why was the film shot in Australia?

Silver: Because it was financially and economically advantageous for us to shoot in Australia. We got a chance to build that whole town. I mean, if we’d made that movie here it would have been shot on the back-lot and it wouldn’t look… I mean, we built that town on a cow field in Queensland. It just gives us a chance to make a more unique, most interesting looking movie, and we have a chance to use the money we got and stretch it further.

Q: What happened with the set — I heard it actually burned?

Silver: Yeah. We had built a set, the foyer of the house, and it was also made as an effects set, an effects stage, where it was just designed for the burning and all the wax material. It was fire retardant but we were using real wax and as it melted it covered all the fire retardant and eventually it got hot enough to just ignite. Nobody got hurt, but we lost the whole stage.

Q: Did that cause any major delays?

Silver: That set had to be rebuilt, but we had the rest.

Serra: It only took us like, a day, or two days, to get back into regular show.

Q: Was it a conscious decision not to make any of the wax figure displays as horror scenes? I mean, most wax museums recreate stuff like Jack the Ripper…

Silver: Yes. We just felt that… well, because the original movie had a lot of things like that. We just felt that we had another story to tell. It wasn’t about the horror themes of the museum, it was what was going on behind the museum.

Serra: Yeah.

Q: While there is violence and horror, you’ve steered completely away from nudity.

Serra: I don’t think we needed any.

Silver: There’s a wax boob.

Serra: For those who want boobs, there’s a wax boob.

Silver: It just didn’t fit in. When we were doing the strip-tease, we said, “Should we go further than that?” and we, you know, look: People have seen Paris do that before, so why did we have to [show her that way too]?

Q: Why no “night-cam” shot of Paris in that scene?

Silver: [smiles humorlessly, doesn’t reply. Note to self: Don’t joke about Paris…]

Q: What about the interracial love affair with Paris’ character and Blake [Robert Ri'chard]? Was there any concern, since so many of this country’s people still have problems with something like that?

Silver: Paris was fine with it. She and Robert were friends. I don’t know if there was anything more than that, but they spent time together. I mean, it was never an issue [in real life]. When they see the movie they’ll know that she doesn’t have a problem. She was fine.

Q: The ambiguous ending was a real flashback to old-style horror. Is there a plan for a sequel?

Silver: I don’t want to sequelize any of these movies. The sequel to a Dark Castle movie is the next Dark Castle movie. These movies are one-shot. The next one is with Hilary Swank. It’s called The Reaping, it starts shooting in July. That’s the next Dark Castle movie, so that’s the sequel. The franchise is the sequel. So that’s just the way the movie ends.

Q: What are some of the plans for Dark Castle’s future — is it where you want it to be right now?

Silver: Exactly. It’s thrilling that this is our fifth movie and we’re starting our sixth. And we have a great idea for our seventh. I just want to keep making them. The studio would like me to make as many as I can — I mean, it’s great business. It’s not a lot of money, they don’t need big names in them. I mean, yes we have Hilary and we had Halle [Berry] but we can go out there and maybe make some money. These are commercial fare. I mean, we try to make good movies, but there’s a few weeks… I mean, Star Wars comes two weeks later, and there’s going to be a vortex in the world [after that]. But we’re just trying to make some fun movies and get some, you know, audience response, and go on to the next one.

Q: Would you ever take a director like George Romero, and put him on a Dark Castle movie?

Silver: I mean, um, a great thing that I have is the opportunity on this movie is that I can go to Jaume. I can go to a guy that’s never made a film before, who has a unique way of doing it and who wants to do something fresh and unique. And they want to go out and make a statement. In effect, that’s an opportunity for me — I get a chance to give opportunities to people who have not one a lot of movies. We’re going to keep doing that. I mean, the next one is Stephen Hopkins, and he’s a great director.

Q: Are you happy with this movie?

Silver: I love it. I think it’s the best one we did. I think it is.

Q: What’s the news on Wonder Woman?

Silver: We just made our deal with Joss Whedon. He’s on board. He’s finishing Serenity, but when that’s done he’s going to start writing the script. He has fantastic ideas and the things he’s told me are just… I just can’t wait. I mean, he really has a feel for the character, he knows what to do. It’s a full origin story, full-on origin story. I mean, it’s great.

Q: What about casting?

Silver: Well, when we have a script then we’ll deal with the casting. I don’t know where we’re going to go but where we are, when we see the script, we’ll make a decision.

[end]

Staci Layne Wilson reporting