Haunted Mansion
review by Bobby Blakey
One of our all-time favorite rides at Disney is the Haunted Mansion. Sure its kind of cheese and silly, but it’s just dang fun. Back in 2003 Eddie Murphy starred in a film version of the famed ride that focused on the Disneyland Paris theme story. Now Disney is heading back to the haunted world to bring an all-new live action film to life with the aptly titled Haunted Mansion. Could this new take due the ride justice or will it just be another wasted haunting?
Haunted Mansion follows a single mom named Gabbie who hires a tour guide, a psychic, a priest and a historian to help exorcise her newly bought mansion after discovering it is inhabited by ghosts. The film features a all-star cast including LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Chase W. Dillon and Dan Levy, with Jamie Lee Curtis and Jared Leto from Dear White People director Justin Simien.
Our love for the ride and the trailers offering up that familiar voice from the ride had me looking forward to this film. I wasn’t expecting anything overly perfect, but just wanted a decent story and lots of references and connections to the ride to do it justice and it does just that. The story is simple enough but does tend to limp along at times and the pacing is pretty slow when not dealing with the hauntings themselves. Thankfully when it comes to those elements it is a ton of fun.
The cast all do a great job and look to be having fun bringing a tone that reminded me of the movie CLUE at times. Sure it’s pretty cliched and by the numbers with not to many twists that you can’t see coming, but outside of the pacing it still manages to deliver what I was hoping for. As mentioned,
where this film shines is the attention to detail connecting it to the ride source and it knocks it out of the park there. Not only does it bring some of the best moments from the ride it also pays homage to both the Disneyland and Disney World versions in a clever way.
They played it pretty light hearted as expected with a somewhat serious undertone much like the ride itself. All the favorite moments are here and they did a great job working them into the story in clever ways without them feeling forced or cheesy. It’s far from a perfect film, but it has that old school haunted house film with some silly aspects that make for some fun to be had especially if you love the ride like we do.
In addition to the film this release offers up bonus content including a gag reel, deleted scenes, featurettes and more. Step into the haunted side of Disney and grab your copy of Haunted Mansion available now on digital and then on 4K, Blu-ray and DVD on October 17th from Disney.
