For the third time in 20 years, Disney has made an adaptation of their Haunted Mansion ride. And while the Eddie Murphy-starring 2003 version wasn’t great, it had some great amusing scenes for aN early 2000s family movie. The Muppet version was just terrible. The latest version is a two-hour spectacular with an impressive cast that mostly chews scenery amid the special effects.
There are a few good moments. I liked how Rosario Dawson’s Gabbie bolts from the titular house when she first sees paranormal activity a split second after comforting her son, Travis (Chase W. Dillon) that everything is going to be just fine. I don’t know if this is an ode to Murphy’s joke from his concert movie Delirious where he talked about The Amityville Horror and how black people would leave the moment a voice said, “Get out!” As most movies about scary places and haunted houses go, Gabbie is a widowed doctor who has moved from New York City to New Orleans in hopes of turning the mansion into a bed and breakfast.
Dawson is one of many in the cast that includes LaKeith Stanfield, which is also a nod I think to Murphy, since he was in a movie called Get Out, Danny DeVito, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Winona Ryder, Daniel Levy, Jared Leto, Jo Koy, Hasan Minhaj and even Marilu Henner in a small role. If there was a Cannonball Run of Disney family fright movies, this would be the one. But just like the Cannonball movies (which Henner co-starred in the second one), the filmmakers must’ve thought the impressive cast would take away from the lackluster plot.
The budget was a reported $150 million give or take $10 million and much of it must’ve been spent on the casting and the special effects. The writer, Katie Dippold, wrote for Parks and Recreation and was a member of the Upright Citizens Brigade. It seems the movie was written more as a showcase for the cast rather than telling a story. Stanfield plays Ben Matthias, an astrophysicist and tour guide in the Big Easy who is also dealing with his own grief following the death of his wife in a car accident years earlier.
Ben is visited by Father Kent (Wilson) who wants him to take documentation of the haunted mansion, known as Gracey Manor. This is a nod to Amityville as well. An evil entity, known as the Hatbox Ghost (Leto) is believed to haunted the Manor and other people such as Harriet (Haddish), a psychic, and Bruce Davis (DeVito), a Tulane professor, all pop up to chew scenery and drop one-liners that fall flatter than Bourbon Street when everyone’s left for the night.
I kinda like Ryder’s small role as Pat, a tour guide who is very anal retentive, but Levy does his usual schtick just for us to say in our minds, “Eeww, David!” Curtis is almost unrecognizable as Madame Leota, a psychic herself, who’s just a head in a crystal ball. But director Justin Simien (who made Dear White People and Bad Hair) can’t do much with the cast as Ben’s grief only exists for the convenience of the plot. And Stanfield can juggle both comedy and drama but here he seems to exist as the straight man to Wilson and Haddish while DeVito is wasted.
Yes, the sets and special effects are supposed to have an exagerrated Disney family feel but I felt they if they just make it look similar as much to the ride, people will be enjoyed. But like a line at DisneyWorld, this seems to take forever waiting for a little excitement at the end that is over with before you able to really enjoy it. I guess if Disney really wanted to make a scary movie based on one of their attractions, they can always turn the Country Bears into a horror flick.
That might actually work if done correctly, don’t you think?
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 