The Scream Queen Next Door

Even though Elisha Cuthbert was not one of those recognized at the recent Teen Choice Awards for House of Wax, she remains that film’s most memorable blonde.

If you want proof that the younger, hipper half of Ebert and Roeper is in touch with the sensibilities of today’s kids, consider that he is one of the few major critics to have given the Paris Hilton remake House a Wax a thumbs up. Said Roeper about the film, although he might just as well have been talking about Hilton: ‘It had a great sense of humor about itself.’

We bring this up now because at the recent 7th annual Teen Choice Awards, where 28 of the staggering 76 honors handed out had something to do with film, the May horror release won a rather surprising three kudos to go along with its $32 million domestic office take: Choice Movie Actor Action/Adventure/Thriller (Chad Michael Murray), Choice Movie Scream Scene (Paris Hilton) and Choice Movie Thriller. Ironically, if any blonde should get thanked for attracting a modicum of teens to this film, it is Elisha Cuthbert, Hilton’s fellow scream queen.

“Coming off of The Girl Next Door, it was important for me to make a movie that was either the opposite or completely different,” the star of 24 and The Girl Next Door explains during a recent interview with FilmStew. “I don’t ever want to be doing the same sort of thing, I never want to be typecast, because I have way too much to give to always be the hot chick in the movie.”

We have a lot of throwbacks to, I think, the classic ideas of what horror film was all about,” she says. “I think it’s a tie in to, ‘This is what we love about horror films, let’s collaborate all of those things and then amp it up one more notch and let’s make a horror film.’ I think that’s what it was all about.”

“Even though I may have had my apprehensions about Paris or whatever it might have been, it all really made sense at the end of the day for this film I think. It’s a fun, commercial, ah, horror film that people I think are going to really have fun watching.”

With her days as a damsel in distress behind her, Cuthbert’s next projects are no less eclectic than those she’s already appeared in. “I produced and starred in an independent film called The Quiet, which is a very dramatic film,” she reveals. “My character’s a girl who’s being physically abused by her father, and the movie is about three or four women that sort of go through a transition throughout the course of the film.” The allure of the film, she says, was that it initially intimidated her. “I think every choice that I make in my career is sort of about that- if it scares me, I do it.”

“If I’m nervous about doing it or not doing a good job, I sort of tend to go to that because I feel like the best work comes out of being challenged. I never try and play it as ‘the girl’.”

After three decades of slasher movies, the whole process of wringing scares from a reluctant crowd has become a startlingly businesslike endeavor. How many times have audiences been caught off guard by friend’s hand reaching out from the darkness, only to walk right into a movie monster’s weapon of choice? Scream, cut, print, and move on to the next victim, who is typically even more buxom and vacuous than her predecessor. In fact, so formulaic and often forgettable are these excursions that the actors and actresses seldom last longer in Hollywood than they do in the film.

But while House of Wax certainly has its share of fake scares and even more fake blondes, Cuthbert says picking a project after her first full-fledged starring role in The Girl Next Door, in which she played a porn star who romances a high school senior, proved to be a tricky prospect. Most of Cuthbert’s other big screen appearances have been in cameo roles, such as in Old School and Love Actually, where her comely countenance featured more prominently than her acting ability. “When I spoke with Joel Silver about this movie in particular, he said, ‘We want to make a big, scary movie’,” she remembers. “That’s what it’s about. I think you can make a commercial movie and still hold the integrity and keep the character development, but at the same time have an extremely good time watching it, you know?”