The First 3D Color Movie Debuted 73 Years Ago Today With This 'Horror Delight'

The so-called 3-D craze in cinema skyrocketed in popularity during the 21st century for a bit — remember? These days, however, it’s more about IMAX and maybe even 4DX.

The film buffs enjoying these current movie-theater experiences may not know that 3D storytelling on the big screen dates all the way to the 1950s, believe it or not.

Exactly 73 years ago — on April 10, 1953 — the horror filmHouse of Wax opened at New York’s Paramount Theater and was the first movie from a major motion-picture studio to be shot using the three-dimensional film process.

It also happened to be one of the first horror films to be shot in color, HISTORY.com reports. Check out the visually astounding promotional poster that was released at the time below.

The 3D filming process reportedly involved using two cameras, or a single twin-lensed camera, to represent both the right and the left eye of the human viewer, per HISTORY.com. Images from the two cameras were then projected simultaneously onto the screen, and moviegoers watched House of Wax through what are called “stereoscopic” glasses to see the actual 3D effect.

Directed by Andre De Toth, House of Wax is a remake of Mystery in the Wax Museum (1933). Here’s the film’s official synopsis:

Wax sculptor Henry (Vincent Price) is horrified to learn that his business partner, Matthew (Roy Roberts), plans on torching their wax museum to collect on the insurance policy. Henry miraculously survives a fiery confrontation with Matthew and re-emerges some years hence with a museum of his own. But when the appearance of Henry’s new wax sculptures occurs at the same time that a number of corpses vanish from the city morgue, art student Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk) begins suspecting wrongdoing.

Though it received negative reviews at the time of release, critics have since showered House of Wax with praise. The “horror delight,” as Rotten Tomatoes calls it, now sits at an impressive 93% on the popular site’s “Tomatometer” based on all the critics’ ratings that ever been published.