EDITOR’S NOTE: House of Wax was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 2, 1976 at 11:30 p.m., Saturday, February 11, 1978 at 11:30 p.m. and September 30, 1978 at 11:30 p.m.

A remake of Mystery of the Wax Museum, this was the first major studio 3D movie and really may be the best 3D film ever made. It was re-released in 1971 and in the early 80s, each time that 3D was revived.

Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) is the best wax sculptor in the world, but his business partner Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts) wants him to make a grislier museum to draw in the crowds. He gets sick of waiting to make money, so he tries to burn the whole thing down, trapping Jarrod in the blaze.

Months later, Burke is rich from the insurance money and out on the town with his girlfriend Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones, years before was Morticia Addams) when he runs into a cloaked man who hangs him, then comes back a few nights later to kill Cathy. He runs into her friend Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk) and escapes.

Jarrod returns, now trapped in a wheelchair with his hands destroyed. He starts his wax museum again with the sculpting by his assistants Leon Averill (Nedrick Young) and Igor (Charles Buchinsky, not yet Charles Bronson).

As movie coincidences happen — Sue’s boyfriend Scott Andrews (Paul Picerni) is also a sculptor and starts to work in the museum, Sue gets a job modeling even though she thinks the Marie Antoinette statue is her friend Cathy and police officer Sergeant Jim Shane (Dabs Greer) recognizes Averill as a criminal — this is also the movie that inspired so many other wax museum movies, as all of the sculptures are the bodies of dead people.

Director Andre de Toth was blind in one eye, having lost his eye when he was young. This meant that he couldn’t see in 3D, which may be why this is one of the better 3D films, as it’s more about the story and less about the things coming at you. There is one amazing effect, when a shadow seems to run into the screen and another where a paddle ball comes at you, but at this movie’s heart, it’s not a gimmick-filled film.

This had a big premiere, with Eddie Cantor, Rock Hudson, Judy Garland, Shelley Winters, Broderick Crawford, Gracie Allen,  and Ginger Rogers in attendance, as well as Bela Lugosi with an ape on a leash, played by Steve Calvert, who appeared with him in Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla.

One of the biggest movies of 1953, this took Vincent Price from being a supporting actor into a lead villain, changing his career. He’s incredible in this, making every moment count. He attended several showings of this movie and said the best time was in New York City, sitting behind two teenagers. As the lights came up, he took of his glasses and said, “Did you like it?” He said, “They went right into orbit!” His makeup was so grisly that it got him banned from eating lunch at the studio commissary, but it was all worth it.

In the 1960s, when horror was a big deal on TV, Warner Brothers wanted to make a House of Wax series.  tried to create a “House of Wax” television series. Cesare Danova, Wilfred Hyde White and Jose Rene Ruiz played the employees of the wax museum who would solve mysteries, using the sets from the movie. It was too intense for hoe viewers so it was released as Chamber of Horrors along with gimmicks like the horror horn and fear flasher.