Haunted Mansion

Tonight, on Disney+, I saw “Haunted Mansion,” which came out in July but on Disney+ at the beginning of the month. How is the second attempt at the famous Disney Park ride?

Sean P. Means said in his review, “With the box-office success of “Barbie,” Hollywood studios are once again looking to their existing intellectual property — the past books, movies, TV shows, video games, toys and other franchises — to save their financial skins.”

Means continued, “Before the suits get too excited, though, maybe they should look at Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” as a cautionary tale of what happens with bad IP happens to good people.”

This is Disney’s second attempt at making a feature-length comedy action movie based on the Disneyland attraction – and apparently, no one in Disney’s studios remembers the one from 2003, starring Eddie Murphy, which was terrible. (Means mentioned, “There was a Disney+ special in 2021, “Muppet Haunted Mansion,” which I’m willing to try someday because it’s the Muppets — and because it’s only 52 minutes long.”)

The mansion in this film is bought online by Gabbie (Rosario Dawson), a widowed New York doctor, who is relocating to New Orleans with her 9-year-old son Travis (Chase W. Dillon). However, after one night in their new house, they realize it’s haunted by a lot of ghosts – some scarier than others – and that the ghosts follow them if they leave.

Gabbie starts looking around for someone who can make the ghosts go away. First, she asks a priest, Father Kent, played by Owen Wilson, who may be not fit for the job. Father Kent finds Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield), an astrophysicist who now does walking tours of haunted New Orleans landmarks – a job he took over from his wife, Alyssa (Charity Jordan), who dies just after the movie’s opening.

Ben has invented a camera that shoots spectral images that could, theoretically, get images of ghosts.

Because of Ben’s hesitance, and still mourning his loss, Gabbie and Father Kent find more people to help: Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), a psychic who knows a little about spells, and Professor Bruce Davis (Danny DeVito), a history professor who knows about New Orleans’ ghostly real estate problems. It’s through Harriet that the group meets Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis), a disembodied head in a crystal ball who knows the spell that could end the haunting – and bring down the evil Hatbox Ghost (Jared Leto, under a lot of prosthetics and computer animation).

Means notes, “The screenplay, by Katie Dippold (“Ghostbusters: Answer the Call”), hits all the familiar touchstones of the Disneyland ride — the hitchhiking ghosts, the ghost-filled ballroom, the stretchy living room, and so on.” What’s missing is a plot that connects those ideas logically, or characters we should care about as they run through the story’s maneuvers.

Means mentions, “Meanwhile, director Justin Simien is hamstrung in his first major studio assignment, and brings none of the comic timing he showed in his indie debut, the 2014 college satire “Dear White People.” It doesn’t help that the actors don’t connect, and give the impression that they were randomly kidnapped from the same Hollywood clique and are being forced to finish the movie before they can see their families again.

The movie does end, in a dark array of computer effects. Means ended his review by saying, “Where “Haunted Mansion” fails to generate laughs, it does evoke feelings of terror — mostly the fear that Disney will trot out this IP again in 20 years.”

You would think that the second attempt would be better, after learning from their mistake of what made the first attempt so bad. However, this attempt turned out to be worse, if you can believe that. Don’t watch this film, as it will have you asking why this was made. However, there are some humanizing moments here, but they get quickly shattered by their funny remarks or other ridiculous things. Just avoid this film because this film is a waste of time. Not right for Halloween time.

Now that we got this out of the way, tune in tomorrow when I talk about the “Carrie” remake in “Halloween Month 2023.”