Director: Justin Simien
Writer: Katie Dippold
Stars: Rosario Dawson, LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish
Synopsis: A single mom named Gabbie 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.
Coming off the heels of his 2008 hit sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Guillermo del Toro announced at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con that he would be directing Haunted Mansion. Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time the Disney ride has made its way to the big screen, as only a few years before this announcement, the original The Haunted Mansion film starring Eddie Murphy would defy poor ratings to become a Disney classic. Sadly, it never seemed like Disney and del Toro could get on the same page regarding what the film should be, and even though he left the project, the idea of a remake never left Disney’s mind. Now, 13 years after the initial reboot/remake announcement, Haunted Mansion (no “the” to emphasize a difference between the two films) is finally making its way to the big screen.
Haunted Mansion kicks off with Ben Matthias (Lakeith Stanfield), a former astrophysicist turned New Orleans ghost tour guide, giving a tour to a rather obnoxious group. Matthias isn’t a friendly person and chooses to live his life alone drinking away whatever money he has left. Meanwhile, Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son Travis (Chase Dillon) are moving into a Louisiana mansion to get a fresh start on life. They quickly realize that their new home isn’t entirely theirs and is haunted by several ghosts.
Father Kent (Owen Wilson) finds Matthias at his home informing the tour guide of the problems going on at the mansion and trying to get him to use a special camera lens he invented that can take pictures of astral projections, or ghosts. Matthias is a strong non-believer in ghosts and chooses to do so after hearing that he will be paid for his time at the house. However, when he leaves the house he quickly finds out that once you step foot on the property the ghost will latch on to you not allowing you to leave. Father Kent and Matthias devise a plan to figure out what the ghosts need and to either send them on to the next life or banish them from this one. To do so, they recruit a medium named Harriet and Bruce Davis, a professor that wrote a book about hauntings throughout Louisiana, to try to put an end to the hauntings.
Making a movie based on an attraction with little story is tough, don’t get me wrong, but it is something that has been proven to work. In 2003, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl picked up 5 Oscar nominations, including one for Best Actor, and more recently 2021’s Jungle Cruise was able to receive relatively positive reviews and even spawned a sequel. So, it just makes it more frustrating, and confusing, when a film with this star power manages to crash and burn as hard as Haunted Mansion does.
Loaded with talent from Oscar nominee Lakeith Stanfield, Oscar winners Jamie Lee Curtis and Jared Leto, and other great and well-known actors Owen Wilson, Rosario Dawson, Tiffany Haddish, and Danny Devito, one would think they would be able to find some sort of balance between their performances. However, Haunted Mansion proves that no matter how much star power you might have in front of the camera, it doesn’t mean the chemistry will be there among the actors, none of whom knew what movie they were making as there would be bad jokes mixed with full-on dramatic “Oscar-bait” performances all within the same scene.
But the tonal discrepancies didn’t stop with the actors, the entire film itself felt as though it never knew what it wanted to be. Even for an obvious child-friendly/family movie, the horror felt too tame to really bring out any sort of fear; even the original The Haunted Mansion provided some genuine scares. The humor in Katie Dippold’s script – who has worked on some genuinely funny projects including Parks and Recreation and The Heat – was based more on awkward and cringey moments instead of actually being funny. Not even the emotional beats could save this story as they were so egregiously forced in, it felt manipulative to the scene and, in a way, funnier than most of the jokes.
Haunted Mansion is a full-on mess of a movie. While there might be a few laughs here and there – the intent of them is still up for debate – and a small amount of safe horror, nothing could redeem the lackluster script and all-over-the-place performances. Maybe this film will appeal to fans of the amusement park a little more, but for me, it was a massive miss that feels better suited for Disney+ than a theatrical run.
