Makes up for its idiot plot with a gallon of gore.

Filled with the usual contemporary horror staples, most notably lots of rusty torture implements and cellphones that tend to scurry mischievously out of reach just as the villain bears down on his prey.

Her demise is spectacularly gruesome, gory and bloody and the filmmakers even throw in an entirely too obvious gag about the hotel heiress' penchant for letting herself get recorded on video tape.

Unfortunately, House of Wax has a seemingly unlimited supply of rope to hang itself with. There is a tremendous amount of extraneous details that force us to wade through this 113 minute slog with no real rhyme or reason behind their inclusion.