'Haunted Mansion' Can't Quite Figure Out Why It Exists
It has been a cruel summer for Disney. Long gone are the glory days of the 2010’s, where Disney could release a sequel to Ant-Man and have it make over $600 million worldwide. At first glance, this summer seemed packed for Disney: an Indiana Jones sequel, a Pixar film, and a Little Mermaid reboot. As summer comes to an end, it seems nearly all of these films have underperformed. None did worse, however, than Haunted Mansion. When Disney released its first Haunted Mansion feature film in 2003, the film was critically panned for being neither scary nor funny. Sadly, twenty years later, it seems Disney has made the same mistake.
Based on the Disneyland ride of the same name, Haunted Mansion follows a family attempting to rid their house of dangerous ghosts. The mother, Gabbie (Rosario Dawson), enlists the help of former astrophysicist Ben (LaKeith Stanfield) to investigate the hauntings. As their problems continue to worsen, the family enlists the help of a priest (Owen Wilson), a medium (Tiffany Haddish), and a professor (Danny Devito). The team begins to uncover a mystery involving a centuries-long curse that could endanger all of their lives. To save themselves, they must fight against an evil entity that threatens to escape the mansion that contains it and find its way into the rest of the world.
The film itself feels like a theme park ride–and not in the way the film aspires to. Corners are cut with special effects, blatant product placement permeates the film, and the characters never quite feel genuine. These flaws may not affect an amusement park ride, but the adrenaline doesn’t hit the same in a movie theater seat compared to the actual ride. This leaves the film feeling derivative, trying to remake an experience that belongs in Disneyland instead of the big screen. The film can never quite pick a lane, poorly trying to juggle being scary, funny, and engaging all at once without ever fully succeeding at any.
The story at the film’s center begins with intrigue but devolves into melodramatic cliches as the story progresses. Much of Haunted Mansion is unnecessary, particularly in the middle portion of the film. This leads to the film feeling overlong and aimless at times during its needlessly long two-hour runtime. The film attempts to create emotional payoffs while constantly undermining its own suspension of disbelief, throwing around self-aware jokes in moments of danger and emotion. In a particularly jarring moment, LaKeith Stanfield’s Ben attempts to deliver an emotional monologue about his dead wife in the same breath as a Baskin Robbins product placement. These inconsistencies in tone create an unfulfilling story, which causes the more narrative-heavy moments to feel unfulfilling. The film drags because of this, especially toward the film’s end.
Tonally, Haunted Mansion lies in this strange limbo between a mysterious horror film and a comedic adventure, and either would have been better than this. The film attempts to have its cake and eat it too, trying to deliver scares while constantly delivering jokes that undermine its own tension. A scene involving a seance, which should contain plenty of tension, is undercut by the fact that Tiffany Haddish’s medium character sounds like she is snoring while trying to contact ghosts. This would be acceptable if the film adopted a lighter tone, giving the film a more adventurous feel than a tense one. But, the film never quite commits to either. This makes the film feel uneven as it attempts to have tense or even emotional scenes mixed with silly jokes. Tension and jokes are fine on their own, but they don’t often work together.
The horror at the film is at times laughable. Every ‘scare’ within the film is made with CGI, which makes the threat feel cartoonish and intangible. It never actually feels like the characters are in danger because the threats are clearly fake. The main villain of the film has probably one of the most bizarre CGI character designs I have ever seen brought to life on film. Jamie Lee Curtis’ character is trapped within a crystal ball, which was done entirely with CGI for some reason. The film’s ending is a CGI mess that would seem better fitting in a lower-tier Marvel movie from ten years ago. It is understandable to not want realistic, unsettling horror in a film made for kids, but it goes without saying that the horror should at least be well-done in a film named Haunted Mansion.
The cast, however, do everything they can to breathe life into the film. There are some legitimately fun interactions between each cast member, which makes the overall product even more disappointing. LaKeith Stanfield brings charm and emotion to the film that it desperately needs. The rest of the cast is full game as well and bring a sense of humanity to an otherwise lackluster film. The actors fully embrace the ridiculousness of the circumstance, which at times gives the film a sense of fun. But, that fun rarely lasts for long.
Haunted Mansion suffers from an identity crisis throughout the film’s two-hour runtime, making the experience a bit of a slog to get through. The film cannot commit to being a horror, comedy, or adventure film, so the end result feels lesser than its parts. The stellar cast does what it can to save the film from itself, but this only works in sparse moments. Even with incredible production design, the film feels unoriginal, merely echoing the thrill of the ride it is based on. The potential of a far better film haunts this film, ultimately making the film itself a frustrating experience.
