Written by Andreas Babiolakis

As a kid, the Haunted Mansion ride at Walt Disney World was one of my favourites. I loved waiting in the room that would seemingly stretch upwards and reveal the dark nature of portraits that once looked innocent, and the ghostly revelations of paintings that too had grim outcomes (particularly the two duelling ghosts with pistols at high noon). Then you go into the doom buggy and are carted around the mansion from its ghastly interiors to the backyard (well, a cemetery). You even picked up a hitchhiking ghost on the way out. The effects — handled by proper mechanics, illusionary projections and more — felt a bit cheap but fun, and they played into the friendly-yet-spooky nature of the whole ride. I don’t find a lot of comedic horrors effective because it can often lead to over-theatrical cheese, but the ride felt like a good blend of family-friendly goofs and some decently creepy thrills. You felt like you were at home with these ghouls and apparitions, but not entirely. It was nice to get out while you still could.

Once Disney scored a slam dunk with its Pirates of the Caribbean film (and eventual franchise), the next attempt was at a Haunted Mansion sister flick which didn’t really work well at all. It was more invested in the experience of the ride than anything else, and it doesn’t translate well to a feature film in this barest sense. Twenty years later, we have attempt number two, this time directed by Justin Simien of Dear White People fame and written by Katie Dippold (who had a hand in the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot that I welcomed with open arms and was let down by the forced comedy and simplistic story found in the end result). On the note of the struggling film of that other comedy-horror franchise, 2023’s Haunted Mansion is sadly no different. The majority of its jokes feel as dead as the claimed souls within the possessed property here, and the story itself feels like a meandering over-stretching of basic ideas to make the seedling of an idea into a feature film.

LaKeith Stanfield plays a paranormal tour guide named Ben who doesn’t really buy into the idea of spirits and ghouls. Nonetheless, he is recommended by Father Kent (Owen Wilson) to a mother and son who have just moved into the haunted mansion without knowing its horrific properties beforehand (they’re looking for it to be exorcised, hence why they approached a priest). Ben is hardly an expert but goes along with the task anyway only to find that this place really is haunted. Shocking. A larger team gets assembled, from psychic Harriet (Tiffany Haddish) to Professor Davis (Danny DeVito). Rosario Dawson and Chase W. Dillon round out the main cast as the mother and son in question, and we get some cameo and bit parts from Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto, and Winona Ryder. Noting the cast is important because they are the only reason to watch and even stick around for Haunted Mansion. Any part that seems interesting or funny is because these actors are interesting and funny. That’s it. You may find DeVito making you laugh despite the staleness of what he says, or you may be compelled by Stanfield as he inspects a very dull retread of a plot point. The spectacle here is the cast of players that keep us company in this house.

*Haunted Mansion* boasts a great cast and not much else.

One thing I will commend Haunted Mansion for is trying to make an actual story to match the Disney World (or Land) ride while ticking off the many boxes of what you would find while experiencing the theme park staple. Many images and sounds from the ride pop up here and don’t feel as tossed in as they do in the 2003 film mentioned earlier. However, what we get instead is a very stale story that feels forcibly stretched to turn this into a feature film. Haunted Mansion is a crisp hour fifty in length, and yet it still feels almost an entire hour too long which is an astonishing problem to have. By creating so much lore as a means of forcing these characters to stick around in this house, the film moves at a snail’s pace, and the typical jokes don’t make Haunted Mansion feel any more exciting. What a film like The Exorcist does well with its mythology is not just focus on the possessed but the people being affected around little Regan MacNeil as well and how the possession is affecting them mentally, spiritually, and physically as individuals. Many like-minded films forget these important elements. Haunted Mansion is one of them, outside of tying the grief and trauma that our protagonist, Ben, holds that gets brought up frequently in the film, although this isn’t enough.

Haunted Mansion is also full of head-scratching CGI that feels like it is yet another victim of the studio forcing project after project into the chambers where they house their visual effects artists, expecting miracles to be churned out as quickly as possible (when real movie magic takes time). In the ride, the cheap effects are fun because you get to experience them firsthand and also take delight in the tongue-in-cheek nature of the ride as well. The CGI in the film, however, doesn’t have the same charm. It may have had the film been more hyperbolic or self-aware, but it isn’t. If anything, Haunted Mansion is unsure of how serious or silly it should be and falls short of both natures. It feels too childish to be a legitimate horror film that actually scares you, so that means it must be for kids. Even then, Haunted Mansion gets into some morbid territory where it feels inappropriate to show the film to young viewers in this way.

This film feels like it was meant for fans of the ride, and the doses of easter eggs and references prove this suspicion. I respect this angle but also feel like this may also be a vice of the film despite its best intentions. What does Pirates of the Caribbean really have in common with the ride of its namesake? Pirates. That’s it. The ride now features Jack Sparrow in it, but he wasn’t a character there originally. You got onto your log and travelled with pirates past the dead washed up on the beach, towns waiting to be looted, and the troops that fought back against the pirates. The feature film created its own lore. I can’t say much for the sequels that are breaking their fists against the pavement where a dead horse used to exist before it disintegrated from all the beating, but the first Pirates film did whatever it took to prove the worth of its own existence.

Both films associated with the Haunted Mansion have succumbed to the same issue: they cannot escape the mansion. The Pirates may be affiliated with the Caribbean, but the idea lends itself to many tales that can be made from this basic concept. With the Haunted Mansion, I suppose both attempts at feature films felt the need to stay true to the titular setting as much as possible. This means narrative stifling, the reliance on easter eggs that those unfamiliar with the ride won’t understand or care for, and the daring tasks of making something out of nothing. I cannot fault either film for trying, but they both do not work for different reasons stemming from the same problem: the Haunted Mansion is a place you visit for yourself. In order for the third reboot (maybe in another twenty years) to work, it needs to use the ride only as a foundation for a bigger idea that gets properly developed. I feel like they genuinely tried to do this with this latest Haunted Mansion release, but it only gets us so far before the film feels dull and repetitive. I appreciate the time I had with these fun actors and the occasional callback to a ride I feel much nostalgia for, but I otherwise don’t feel much connection with Haunted Mansion at all: as if I am the ghost of a body far removed. I am ready to carry on.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.