‘Haunted Mansion’ Is Disney Taking You For a Ride

David Fear
·5 min read
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HAUNTED MANSION - Credit: Disney
HAUNTED MANSION - Credit: Disney

Maybe it’s the cumulative effect of watching so much top-notch talent being wasted. Or the woozy sensation of being subjected to two hours of cut-rate CGI effects apparently purchased in a bulk deal. Or the blatant product placement for Burger King jalapeño poppers. Or the in-joke nod to Beetlejuice, a comparative reference which does this movie zero favors. But there will inevitably be something about Haunted Mansion, Disney’s latest attempt to spin amusement park memories into box-office gold, that qualifies as a dealbreaker. A corporate I.P. Easter-egg hunt posing as a movie, this horror-comedy raids the House of Mouse’s resident spoooooky ride’s signature bits while nudging your ribs as aggressively as (in)humanly possible. Even for die-hard Disney fanatics, it’s still about as fun as waiting endlessly in line for something permanently closed for repairs.

We’ve been on this tour before, back in 2003 when Mouse Inc. mined those same supernatural thrills and chills for an Eddie Murphy star vehicle and released it roughly five months after its first Pirates of the Caribbean became a smash hit. The ride itself has been around since 1969, designed as Disneyland’s family-friendly take on the macabre; the updated versions at both U.S. parks still rely on a lot of the smoke-and-mirrors stage tricks, old-school animatronics, and pitch-black humor that characterized the Nixon-era original. There’s still a throwback charm to the park’s Gothic-lite attraction, one which doesn’t require a rethinking of gender politics or racial stereotypes (unlike, ahem, some other Disneyland landmarks.)

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Judging by what’s onscreen in this 2023 cash-in, the mandate handed down to director Justin Simien (Dear White People) and screenwriter Katie Dippold (the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot) was apparently: Here’s a bunch of names, gags, etc. from the ride — now reverse-imagineer all that shit into a blockbuster. We don’t care how, just do it, stat! Which is why Ben Matthias (Lakeith Stanfield), a quantum physicist who developed a camera capable of photographing the spectral realm, is recruited for a paranormal “dream team” at Gracey Manor. The name appears on a tombstone next to the outside line-up queue; it’s also a tribute to the mansion’s co-creator, Yale Gracey. That’s one of the more subtle allusions.

A scientist and a skeptic, Ben once met a young woman at a bar in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve. She believed in ghosts and gave tours of haunted locales. He fell in love. They married. She passed away. He became bitter. A priest, Father Kent (Owen Wilson), informs him that a New Yorker named Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son Travis (Chase Dillon) have just moved into the manor outside of town. They say it’s haunted, and will pay him to take pictures of whoever or whatever is lurking about. Ben goes, pretends to snap some shots, and declares the place free of malevolent spirits. Then he goes home and finds that the ghost of a sea captain — yup, the same one from the ride — has followed him.

Soon, Ben, Father Kent and the family are joined by Harriet the psychic (Tiffany Haddish) and Professor Davis (Danny DeVito), an expert in haunted dwellings. Along with Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis), a disembodied spirit trapped in a crystal ball, this second-tier Scooby gang determine that the ghost of a horrible man named Crump, who keeps his head in a hatbox (and is played by… Jared Leto?), wants to gather everyone in the house. He’s in search of one last soul, which will allow him to roam free in our world. The bad guy is already in possession of 999 souls, but hey, there’s always room for one more — which we’re pretty sure is the same operating procedure regarding reaction shots after D.O.A. jokes as well.

The “hits” keep on coming: Characters are ejected from the house via speeding-backward chairs that are dead ringers for the ride’s “doom buggies.” The descending art gallery turns into an escape room, complete with quicksand and hungry alligators. The dueling brothers from the portraits turn into plot points; ditto the bride with the many decapitated husbands. Oh look, there’s the organ player, and the dancing spirits, and the busts whose eyes seem to follow you, and a million other familiar details and soulless callbacks that aren’t worked into the story so much as shoved into the frame for quick recognition. No one would fault a potential I.P. tentpole for cramming beloved flotsam and jetsam from its source material — what the hell else are you supposed to do here? — except it all feels like a checklist being ticked off, dutifully and dully. A bag of conspicuous fast-food snacks gets more screen time than some Disneyland Mansion fan-favorites and Dan Levy combined.

There is something vaguely resembling a storyline throughout all of this, which attempts to tap into a sense of grief and the idea that holding on to it for too long is unhealthy. You get that it’s embedded in among the wocka-wocka punch lines and weightless digital FX and winky-wink namedrops to add some sense of gravitas. Yet its handled so haphazardly that when Stanfield breaks into genuine tears before another grating round of spot-the-reference, you want to scream on his behalf. It’s Lazy Emotional Manipulation 101. Disney, you can do better than this, even with something based on an amusement park staple. Haunted Mansion doesn’t have one-tenth of the wit or imagination of that decades-old attraction. You will, however, definitely feel like you’ve been taken for a ride in the worst possible way.

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