Haunted Mansion
A woman and her son enlist a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid their home of supernatural squatters.
- Released: 2023-07-26
- Runtime: 123 minutes
- Genre: Comedy, Family, Fantasy
- Stars: Rosario Dawson, Chase W. Dillon, Lakeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Jared Leto, Jamie Lee Curtis, Winona Ryder, Hasan Minhaj, Dan Levy
- Director: Justin Simien
Comments
- ellieweimaraner - 13 June 2024
Nope
Wish they'd quit making bad remakes of earlier movies. This was silly and not worth the time. Someone needs to step up their movie making game. This one fell flat on multiple levels.
The Haunted Mansion theme park ride was the inspiration for the original movie. But this movie borrowed too heavily while delivering little. Remember when adults could be entertained by "kid's movies"? No longer, apparently.
Wish all of the movie making industry could get its act together and start delivering some original, entertaining movies for everyone. People are actually pretty smart and don't need dumb scripts thrust in their faces. - Coventry - 7 March 2024
From Disney, with goosebumps...
Walt Disney Productions and child friendly (NOT childish) horror movies were a successful combo many decades ago. I even daresay it's largely thanks to Disney that I'm such a massive fan of horror, cult, and overall weird cinematic stuff. The first movies that triggered my interest in the genre were Disney movies, like the unforgettable "The Watcher in the Woods", "The Island at the Top of the World", "Something Wicked this way comes", "Escape to Witch Mountain", or "Return to Oz".
Disney hasn't released any films like that in the past two or three decades, or at least not as frequently. I deliberately skipped the Eddie Murphy version of "Haunted Mansion" because I wasn't part of any target audience in 2003, but I wanted to see this 2023 version mostly because I have children of my own now that are developing an interest in horror like mine. So proud! Thus far, I only watched "Goosebumps" or "Jumanji" with my 8 and 11 year old kids, so I'm happy to Disney-horror again.
Bearing in mind "Haunted Mansion" is a long-feature film based on a theme park attraction, it really isn't so bad! The plot isn't highly original or entirely without defaults (and the setting isn't as unique as "Pirates of the Caribbean") but it's an engaging enough ghost story with a few nice details and not too much sentimentality. The cool thing about the story of "Haunted Mansion" is that the spirits of the house don't want to scare away their human inhabitants but keep them inside. Even when the occupants make the wise and completely rational decision to leave the house, wherever they go, they are sent back by the spirits with such gloomy cries as "Go back, go back, ...". It takes a while before a whole team of local "experts" from New Orleans (a priest, professor, spiritual medium, and a kitschy tourist guide) realize there is one domineering and megalomaniacal spirit in command of the house, and that he must collect 1000 spirits to escape from the underworld again. Oh, and more bad news, he already has 999!
My family and I enjoyed the plot, occasionally also the humorous touches and the handful of suspenseful moments. The special effects, well... let's just say that my daughter was impressed, but that I'm too old to be astounded by digital computer tricks and will forever prefer good old-fashioned stop-motion or handywork. The greatest thing about "Haunted Mansion" is the cast. I have always loved Rosaria Dawson and thinks she's a great actress. LaKeith Stanfield is also very good and manages to bring a real emotional depth to his character. The supportive cast made me most happy, though. What a brilliant move to cast Danny DeVito as the cynical professor, and Jamie Lee Curtis is the charismatic spiritual medium stuck in her crystal ball. I also enjoyed Owen Wilson, whose natural "what's going on here" attitude nicely fitted his character.
