4 out of 5 stars

Showtime is by far my favorite cable channel, but has a long history of cancelling shows before their time…Dead Like Me, Leap Years, Odyssey 5, Resurrection Blvd, and Jeremiah are just a few that I watched.

Dead Like Me was an original Showtime television show produced by MGM.  The show ran for two years, 2004-2005. It won two Emmys and several other industry awards. It was awesome television. The premise in short – a misanthropic young woman dies in a freak accident. She doesn’t go to heaven or hell, she’s assigned a job. She becomes  a reaper and works with other reapers to remove the souls of people before they die. She sends souls to their white lights without ever seeing hers. In addition to all that, she has to deal with real life – a job, rent, food, etc.

Showtime and MGM seemed to be confused about show’s ratings – very high, too low, not sure. In the end, Dead Like Me was cancelled. Bryan Fuller, the creator who left the show early in season one, claimed it was largely due to conflict with MGM.

Regardless, MGM decided to bring Dead Like Me back in movie form – straight-to-DVD Dead Like Me: Life After Death. Anyone who has ever been a fan of a cancelled television show has wanted this to happen at least once.  The problem with television is, season to season, you never know if the show will be back, if the story will be completed. And when a show ends before the story is done, fans are heartbroken. It’s like reading a book and stopping half-way through. There’s no closure.

Dead Like Me: Life After Death is closure. The movie largely focuses on the main character of the show, George played by Ellen Muth, and pushes the other characters to the background. Dead Like Me: Life After Death takes you through the final stage of grief: acceptance. We see George truly accept her situation, we see that her family has accepted her death, we watch her little sister accept losing loved ones. And most importantly, fans are forced to accept that Dead Like Me is truly dead.

Hardcore fans have criticized the movie, citing “it’s not the same.” Of course it isn’t the same. It has been five years since the show ended. People have moved on. Of course the entire original show cast didn’t sign on for the movie. Of course the writing, wardrobe, etc isn’t the same.

Fans of Dead Like Me’s ensemble cast will be disappointed. Two cast members, Mandy Patinkin and Laura Harris were missing. Callum Blue and Jasmine Guy, the other two stars of Dead Like Me, were not largely featured in the film. In fact, their characters showed absolutely no growth. Instead they were the same characters that were introduced in Season 1 Episode 1.

If you’re judging Dead Like Me: Life After Death independently though, it’s a pretty solid film. Ellen Muth is an amazing actress and definitely has the ability to carry a movie. Britt McKillip, who played George’s sister Reggie, also did phenomenally well.  The scenes Muth and McKillip shared made the film.

If you watched the TV show and would like a little closure, Life After Death is your best bet.

The Good: The Acting, Happy Ending, Original Story

The Bad: Timing (Too Little Too Late), Character Development, So-So Script

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3 out of 5 stars

The plot is simple…a bunch of teenagers wander into a small little town with a House of Wax Museum. They cause trouble and trouble finds them. Eventually someone or something starts killing the teenagers off one by one.

House of Wax is an awesomely bad horror movie that you can laugh out loud to. And I mean that in the best way possible. This 2005 remake of the 1953 original by the same name was advertised as Paris Hilton’s first big movie role (if you disregard that 2004 sex tape). Paris Hilton was by no means the lead in House of Wax, but her presence tells you all you need to know before you even press play.

House of Wax wasn’t meant to be a scary, edge-of-your-seat, thriller. In order for a movie to really scare you, it has to draw you in. And in order for a movie to draw you in, the acting has to be 100% solid. And that could not have been expected with this casting job. With the exception of Paris Hilton and Robert Ri’chard, the acting was pretty decent. Time has shown that nearly all of the actors in this movie are talented. However they were very inexperienced when this was filmed. Chad Michael Murray and Jared Padalecki were largely television actors in 2005, and the few movie roles they had under their belts were teen love interests.  Elisha Cuthbert had only done a few comedy films at the time. The only stellar performance came from the very experienced Brian Van Holt, who played the villain.

My last words on the acting… the stars of this film (Cuthbert, Murray, & Padalecki) cannot be faulted for two reasons – 1. They had to play off of bad actors, Paris who was a newbie, and Ri’chard who has a long history of overacting. 2. The script was horrible.

Let me repeat – the script sucked!  Check out IMDB’s most memorable quotes and you’ll realize not a one of them is memorable. In addition to that, every scene leading up to a BIG SCENE was completely implausible. The teenagers were written to be caricatures of modern-day teenagers – no respect for authority, rude, rambunctious, and overly curious. Throughout the movie you’re thinking “Who would do that?!”

So what redeems this film? Low expectations. Seriously, Paris Hilton is in it. You can’t expect it to be good. The blood, gore, and death scenes also redeem this film. You don’t feel sorry for the characters when they die, you’re fascinated by how they died. It’s good stuff.

Oh, and there is the wax. It’s hard to make wax look scary. And the special effects crew never really accomplishes it in this film. In fact, wax is such a cheesy, silly horror element that it reminds me of all those awesomely bad B horror films with a “blob” substance as the villain. You can’t help but laugh and cheer when the blob wins.

So if you avoided the film in 2005, reconsider. Add it to your Netflix Queue and when it arrives, sit back, munch on some popcorn, enjoy the blood, and have a few laughs.

The Good: Low Expectations, Death Scenes, Laughs

The Bad: The Script, The Acting, Special Effects

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