In the summer of 2003, Disney lit the box office on fire with Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. The film would go on to earn Johnny Depp his first Oscar nomination before spawning a series of diminishing sequels. But in the fall of the same year, Disney accomplished the exact opposite with their other theme park ride movie when Eddie Murphy starred in The Haunted Mansion. Disney tried again two years ago — this time with Muppets — in Muppet Haunted House, which went directly to Disney+ in the midst of the pandemic. It was a much better effort, though not exactly a hit. Would the third time be the charm?
Directed by Justin Simien (Dear White People) and written by Katie Dippold (Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) Disney’s latest Haunted Mansion is a fun, funny, and heartfelt. It is also uneven, a bit too long, and starts to run out of steam toward the end. But LaKeith Stanfield leads a terrific ensemble that carries the energy enough to see things through.
(L-R): Chase Dillon as Travis, Rosario Dawson as Gabbie, LaKeith Stanfield as Ben, Owen Wilson as Father Kent, and Tiffany Haddish as Harriet in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo by Jalen Marlowe. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Stanfield is Ben, once a brilliant astrophysicist who now grudgingly conducts ghost tours through historic New Orleans. It is a favor to his lost love, Alyssa (Charity Jordan), though his emotional baggage and general disbelief of the paranormal make him exactly the wrong person to lead enthusiastic tourists through the French Quarter. One day, a stranger shows up at Ben’s door in the form of Father Kent (Owen Wilson). He knows about Ben’s scientific discoveries and persuades him to visit a house outside of town. A haunted mansion.
The details start to unfold quickly, even as the story takes its time. Single mom Gabby (Rosario Dawson) and her 9-year-old son Travis (Chase Dillon) are recent transplants from New York. Gabby was a doctor there, but gave up her practice to start a new life reconnecting to the part of the country where her mother grew up. To do so, she bought an old mansion with plans to renovate and turn it into a bed and breakfast. But, of course, her plans are thwarted by a bevy of happy haunts. Which is why she enlists the aid of Father Kent, who turns to Ben. Eventually a history professor (Danny DeVito as Bruce) and a medium (Tiffany Haddish as Harriet) arrive on the scene, and the eclectic mix of strangers have to find a way out of a mansion full of ghosts who won’t let them leave.
(L-R): Owen Wilson as Father Kent, Rosario Dawson as Gabbie, LaKeith Stanfield as Ben, Tiffany Haddish as Harriet, and Danny DeVito as Bruce in Disney’s HAUNTED MANSION. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
As spooky movies go, Justin Simien’s Haunted Mansion is more in line with Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters than with something like Poltergeist or A Watcher in the Woods. It’s mostly funny, sometimes very silly, but will also be a bit frightening for very young viewers. The pairing of Simien as director and Dippold as writer creates a family-friendly movie that touches on a wide range of experiences. Touching on love, loss, and the universal need for connection, the grim, grinning ghosts have a knack for bringing people together.
It isn’t perfect, and will certainly not be the type of awards-friendly fare the first Pirates movie was twenty years ago. A side quest near the climax grinds the momentum to a halt. Despite a couple of fun cameos, this late scene adds nothing to the story but an extra 15 or so unnecessary minutes that serve to make the audience very aware of how much time is left. Still, once this bit is over, the action resumes and leads to some surprisingly tender moments for some of our characters.
Even with its very many winks to the theme park ride upon which it is based, Simien manages to avoid some of the grief-tinged horror movie clichés that could have derailed everything he built. With Stanfield and Dawson — as well as Dillon — bearing the emotional weight of their stories in very different ways, we also get some great performances in a film that could have gotten away with just being goofy. But we have plenty of that in the trio of Wilson, DeVito, and Haddish, all of whom make great supporting players.
Haunted Mansion is the kind of heartfelt, entertaining, mid-range family movie we just don’t get enough of these days.