HAUNTED MANSION - Mark Reviews Movies

The Haunted Mansion, Disney

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 27, 2023

There's probably a funnier and/or scarier movie in the bones of Haunted Mansion, the second and, for whatever it's worth, better attempt to adapt the Disney theme park attraction for the big screen. Since director Justin Simien's movie is meant to appeal to as many age groups as possible, though, it can't be too much of one of those qualities. The resulting attempt never quite finds the sweet spot between the silly and the spooky.

Instead, Katie Dippold's screenplay tries to be as sincere as possible under the circumstances. That might not be the correct move, either, because, for all of the movie's efforts to ground the material by way of its fairly relatable characters, everything surrounding them feels as engineered as a haunted house tour.

On the plus side, the focus on character—until the story becomes the equivalent of a scavenger hunt and a showdown with assorted ghosts—provides some surprisingly nimble and genuine performances. The first sign of that comes when we meet our main protagonist. He's Ben Matthias (a compellingly naturalistic LaKeith Stanfield), a former astrophysicist whose life and career have hit a major slump following the death of the woman (played by Charity Jordan) he still loves.

She was a believer in the supernatural, while he, a man of science and reason, was skeptical and, now, is perhaps even more so. Following in his late love's footsteps, Ben has abandoned his scientific work to give historical tours around New Orleans, where it's claimed there are more haunted places than anywhere else in the world.

As for how and why Ben made such a giant professional leap, that's probably because it's a good excuse for him to scold tourists looking for ghosts and to end up at the center of the movie's plot. Just because the characters appear solidly defined, obviously, doesn't actually mean the screenplay cares to explain or justify such seemingly vital details about them.

That plot, which becomes the really important part of the whole enterprise, revolves around a remote, decrepit mansion outside the city limits. There, single mother Gabbie (Rosario Dawson, who plays the generically concerned-mother role with real strength and tenderness) and her pre-teen son Travis (Chase Dillon), who dress in such a prim and proper and almost anachronistic way that one wonders if the filmmakers considered but abandoned a last-minute twist, have just moved for some peace and quiet. On their first night in the manor, though, they encounter all sorts of strange occurrences, leading Gabbie to quickly do the one thing we always hope a character in a haunted house story will actually do: Get out of the damned house.

It doesn't work, of course, because that scene's just the prologue for this haunted house story. Gabbie and Travis are stuck there, so they enlist the aid of Fr. Kent (Owen Wilson), whose attempt at an exorcism fails, leading the seemingly unlikely priest to seek out Ben. Ben had invented a camera lens that theoretically could capture images of the spectral realm, and after faking using it and finding out that he has been followed home by the ghost of an old sea captain, he returns to the mansion. The four of them are stuck there by the ghosts for a reason they have to determine.

The rest of the plot has the quartet, along with professor Bruce (Danny DeVito) and spirit medium Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), trying to figure out what the ghosts want and, hence, how to stop them from haunting the entire group anywhere they go. The humor here mostly comes from the characters' self-awareness about their situation. Additionally, there are some subdued comedic performances to admire from Wilson, DeVito, and Haddish, all of whom understand that they shouldn't put on too much of a show to maintain the movie's attempted tonal balance—and probably can't, because the visual effects are meant to be real show here.

Some of the subtler tricks, such as a hallway that expands in a dizzying combination of camera work and effects, are nice and, as much as it's possible in a ghost story, down-to-earth touches. Most of the ghosts themselves—created by way of real actors, in convincing makeup and costumes, made translucent with what looks like old-fashioned editing trickery—are effective, too, and some of the horror sequences here are relatively intense enough that it's almost as if Simien forgot he was making family-friendly entertainment. That's a good thing.

Less effective, though, are scenes and characters that entirely depend on visual effects, such as the disembodied head of Madame Leota, which is meant to be Jamie Lee Curtis' face in a crystal ball but looks like a wax model created from someone's vague memory of her, and big villain the Hat-Box Ghost, whose digitally sunken face mostly makes one wonder why they bothered casting a name actor (namely Jared Leto) in the role.

The bigger issue, though, is that the movie loses its somewhat agile footing between comedy and scares, along with some poignant passages involving Ben's grief, as the hunt for a way to defeat the Hat-Box Ghost takes over the story. It's inevitable, of course, just as how forgettable the not-quite-successful balancing act of Haunted Mansion turns out to be and, likely, will remain. That is until a sequel or another try at a reboot, obviously.

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