Could it be done in real life?
Is it possible to make a convincing and lasting waxwork by covering a dead body in a layer of wax?
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MovieChat Forums > House of Wax (1953) Discussion > Could it be done in real life?
The body would probably have to be embalmed first.
Philosophy = questions that may never be answered
Religion = answers that may never be questioned
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Yes, you would have to use a dead person who bathed regularly.
And we all know how sloppy the dead are in matters of personal hygiene.
shareIn the 1933 version the reporter first suspects that the stolen bodies are being used as molds for deathmasks but are not the statues themselves. That would be more sensible and realistic, but for a movie it's more thrilling to have the statues be the bodies themselves.
shareYes, and of course using bodies as death masks has origins in tribal customs as well as with murderers like Ed Gein.
The 1933 version of this film is excellent as well, a great companion piece to Vince Price's version.
how? if the peron is covered in wax with no holes no small would go through the wax.
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"Common sense is not so common."
- Voltaire
>>Is it possible to make a convincing and lasting
>>waxwork by covering a dead body in a layer of wax?
No more than it's possible to create a mask to cover a disfigured face that's so lifelike nobody'd notice.
However, as Hitch might say: It's only a movie. (Or, as I would amend that: It's better than reality; it's a movie.)
Sorta kind of...it's called plastination and is the centerpiece of the Body Worlds exhibition.
The voluntarily donated corpses are treated to facilitate the process and retard decomposition, dissected, flayed or dis-assembled, coated with a proprietary "plastic" substance and posed.
Also, from about the 1800's through the very early 1900's, medical universities used dissected medical specimens (including complete corpses) treated with chemicals and coated with wax as teaching aids.
There are some spectacular examples of these wax-coated figures (which anticipated the Body Worlds figures) in museums around the world. Some were even featured in the ghoulish basement museum in the remake of House on Haunted Hill.
"If you don't know the answer -change the question."
This may be a bit controversial but look up Catholic incorruptibles, especially St. Bernadette Soubirous. (A few years earlier, Vincent Price was in a film about her life.) These are usually entire preserved bodies where the head and hands are covered in wax. There are other incorruptibles which are not Catholic and I don't know the story on them.
SPOILER (for the last scene):
In House of Wax, it is stated earlier that the bodies of the figures are made and the head and hands added later. Only at the very end of the film is it implied that an entire LIVE body was about to be covered in wax, with no prior preservation. This bothered me at first because I thought all the figures were entire bodies which would be subject to decomposition, etc. I absolutely didn't believe it and didn't want to watch the film again as I found it ridiculous. Only on a repeat viewing did I catch the part about the body being made separately, which made it much more believable. By the time Professor Jarrod was going to dip the entire girl he had gone quite mad and wasn't thinking about the prep work that may have been done to the other subjects. This made the story work much better for me.