If you asked 100 people to name a movie based on a Disney theme park attraction, I’d bet at least 90 would go with the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, with a few respondents mentioning the likes of “Tower of Terror” (1997), “Mission to Mars” (2000), “The Haunted Mansion” (2003), “Tomorrowland” (2015) or “Jungle Cruise” (2021).
Anyone that blurts out, “The Country Bears!,” well, I’d keep an eye on them.
When Disney adapted its enormously popular and generations-spanning Haunted Mansion dark ride attraction to the big screen some 20 years ago, it was an Eddie Murphy vehicle that leaned heavily on the comedy and was slammed by critics for being overstuffed and neither particularly funny nor scary, but it actually performed well at the box office and has enjoyed something of a second life on various home video platforms over the years.
Now comes “Haunted Mansion” 2023, an energetic, sprawling, sometimes aimless but ultimately entertaining old-fashioned blend of comedy and horror that’s overflowing with Easter Eggs and insider winks to the theme ride attraction, and benefits greatly from an ensemble cast that works overtime to make sure we enjoy ourselves. With director Justin Simien (“Dear White People,” “Bad Hair”) deftly blending the laughs with the frights, and a terrific screenplay by Katie Dippold (“The Heat,” “Snatched”) that juggles the scary stuff, the often-hilarious dialogue and a surprising dose of emotionally resonant material, it feels as if “Haunted Mansion” will score with diehard fans of the theme attraction as well as those viewers who have never entered the park gates of the Magic Kingdom, Disneyland, Disneyland Paris or Tokyo Disneyland, let alone experienced the ride for themselves.
LaKeith Stanfield’s Ben was once a passionate engineer working on a camera that could capture images of things the human eye cannot perceive, maybe even paranormal activity, but after the tragic loss of his wife Alyssa (Charity Jordan), who conducted tours of New Orleans’ most haunted places, Ben has crawled into a bottle and has given up on life. He abandoned his career and stumbles through his days as Alyssa’s successor on the tour, but he doesn’t believe for a second in ghosts. He doesn’t believe in anything.
Enter one Father Kent (Owen Wilson), a hipster priest who tells Ben about a haunted mansion an hour north of New Orleans. All Ben has to do is visit the venue and snap a few pictures of these alleged ghosts with his special cameras, and he’ll be paid a considerable sum.
With Kris Bowers’ music setting a suitably ominous tone, and the production design delivering impressive visuals, Ben arrives at the remote mansion, where he is greeted by single mother Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her precocious, 9-year-old son Travis (Chase W. Dillon). As Gabbie explains, she bought the place looking for a fresh start (single moms in scary movies are always buying remote, dicey places because they’re looking for a fresh start), with a plan to convert the cavernous old place into a Bed and Breakfast.Given the sheer scope of this place and the amount of work it would take to whip it into shape, Gabbie must be loaded, but we never get into that.
Ben thinks it’s all nonsense and he goes through the motions of taking pictures (the camera’s battery is dead) — but when he returns home that night, he soon discovers he’s not alone. Once you’ve entered this particular Haunted Mansion, which is populated by literally hundreds of ghosts, some of them will attach themselves to you and follow you everywhere. You cannot shake them. (This is why Gabbie and Travis are still there. They’ve tried to escape, numerous times, only to be haunted by the ghosts in hotel rooms, etc. Might as well stay here and try to figure out how to break the curse, right?)
In order to rid the mansion of these pesky, old-timey ghosts who emerge every night after midnight and just haunt the hell out of the mansion while messing with any humans who are trapped there, Father Kent and Ben enlist the help of Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), a French Quarter psychic in the Whoopi Goldberg “Ghost” tradition of mediums who are essentially con artists, until they learn maybe they actually do have psychic powers, and Professor Bruce Davis (Danny DeVito), who has been studying and teaching supernatural phenomena for decades.
Joining the team from the other sides is Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis), an ancient psychic who is literally trapped inside a crystal ball and could hold the key to taking down the mysterious and malevolent Hatbox Ghost (Jared Leto), a tyrant with a voracious appetite for collecting souls and possessing them forever.
One of the things I loved about “Haunted Mansion” is the disparity in performances. Haddish, DeVito, Curtis and Wilson go for the broad and big laughs, while Dawson, young Chase Dillon and in particular Stanfield give grounded performances, even amid the chaos. When Stanfield’s Ben delivers an extended monologue about the extent of his grief or when he roars at the Hatbox Ghost with Shakespearean ferocity, it’s as if he’s in a different movie altogether — but it works. “Haunted Mansion” is a loud and raucous and semi-scary good time, but it also has real heart.
