HAUNTED MANSION

 

A VISUAL FUN, YET FORGETTABLE

HAUNT OF A MOVIE

In 2003, Walt Disney Studios struck cinematic gold with the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, a live-action movie that took the premise of one of their popular park attractions and made it into a full feature length film. The success of The Curse of the Black Pearl propelled the studio to launch both a franchise underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean series (combining a total of five films under its belt) and showed that the “House of Mouse” could make money of making cinematic movies that are based around other prime staples of their theme park attractions. In fact, Pirates of the Caribbean wasn’t the only (before or after its release) that saw Disney come up with this idea of adapting their theme park rides, with such examples of movie being released, including 2000’s Dinosaurs, 2002’s Country Bears, 2003’s Haunted Mansion, 2015’s Tomorrowland, and 2021’s Jungle Cruise just to name a few. Although, while those movies were adapted into cinematic representations, most were met with mixed reviews and moderate box office success, with Pirates of the Caribbean being the most lucrative and popular amongst moviegoers. Now, Walt Disney Studios and director Justin Simien present the latest film to take theme park attraction from Disney for a feature length film endeavor with a remake release of Haunted Mansion. Is this one “ghostly haunt” worth a visit or is it just another “run-of-the-mill” remake from Disney that doesn’t go anywhere?

THE STORY

Moving to New Orleans from New York to start a new life and to open up a bed and breakfast, Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son, Travis (Chase W. Dillion) move into an old Louisiana style mansion that they inherited. Upon arriving there, however, the property is haunted, filled with ghosts and spirits that call the estate their afterlife home, putting Gabbie in a difficult position where she and her son can’t leave. Looking for help from the outside, Gabbie finds Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield), a once astrophysicist now turned paranormal tour guide with access to a special camera that is capable of catching such spectral images. When Ben is unable to solve the mystery of the haunted house, more experts are enlisted to such paranormal activity, including historian professor Bruce Davis (Danny DeVito), religious priest Father Kent (Owen Wilson), and psychic medium Harriet (Tiffany Haddish). Gathering inside the decrepit manor, the team hatches up a way to understanding the cryptic history of Master Gracey, the former owner of the mansion, as they confronted the dangerous handlings of the Hatbox Ghost (Jared Leto), who’s planning something evil for the guest. As Ben leads the charge in trying to figure out what the Hatbox Ghost is really after, he wrestles with oppressed grief over the loss of his love, Alyssa (Charity Jordan), of which the menacing ghost preys upon.

This brings me back around to talking about Haunted Mansion, a 2023 a supernatural horror comedy and the latest reimagining of a Disney attraction brought to the silver screen storytelling. To be honest, I can’t remember much of 2003’s Haunted Mansion. I do remember seeing it once (sometime after its theatrical release) and that it starred Eddie Murphy, Terrence Stamp, Marsha Thomason, and Nathaniel Parker, but I only watched it once and don’t exactly recall some of the finer details of the feature’s characters and story. I remember the main plot, but that’s pretty much it. I just thought it was okay and didn’t really pay much attention to the project, especially after seeing Pirates of the Caribbean that same year and favoring that movie endeavor over this one. So, I was kind of a bit surprised to see that Disney was going to make yet another attempt of making a film about its famed park attraction ride when this project was announced. I mean…. another Haunted Mansion movie? I mean, the first one made decent money, but not the big numbers that the studio was probably projecting. Still, giving Disney’s recent trend of revisiting IPs in both their long history of entertainment and amusement park rides, it seems like a logical choice to come back to one of their famed attractions for another go around. To be sure, this movie would be standing on its own merits and integrity and not all connected to the 2003. So, almost like a remake. After the announcement, I really didn’t hear much about this upcoming project, with only a few minor exceptions of movies that were coming to be coming out in 2023 (toward the end of 2022). It wasn’t until I first saw the film’s movie trailer, which was where I actually got a good “first look” at Haunted Mansion, which (to its credit) looked pretty good. I mean…. from the preview alone looked pretty straightforward in its storytelling, but I was interested in the cast (i.e., Stanfield, Dawson, DeVito, Ownes, Haddish, Curtis, etc.).

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