Gather round the flickering candlelight, boils and ghouls! In this special episode of Sitting in the Dark, Ray DeLancey welcomes two macabre mavens to the morbid merriment: Pete Wright and Tommy Metz III. Together, these horror hounds aim to dig up the decaying details on two Vincent Price classics given modern makeovers—the 1999 and 2005 remakes of House on Haunted Hill and House of Wax.

Hunkering into the cobweb-covered crypt, the ghastly trio finds plenty to praise in the remakes’ attempts to recreate the vintage thrills of the originals. From entire towns gruesomely molded from wax to clever winks to William Castle’s famous theater gimmicks, the filmmakers conjure the macabre spirit of the classics. Yet Ray, Pete, and Tommy agree that capturing the unique charisma of Vincent Price or conjuring new horror icons is no easy feat.

Throughout their late-night analysis, they look at these films as “playgrounds” for horror, where anything goes, and the screams come easy. But they conclude that without rules that make sense and characters you care about, the scares just aren’t the same.

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