Haunted Mansion – House of Wasted Potential and Poor Execution

When it comes to the titular Disney amusement park ride, it served as inspiration for 2003’s The Haunted Mansion, a film starring Eddie Murphy. Not a groundbreaking film by any means, it remains in the memories of audiences. That being said, did it need to be readapted again? What more can it add to the discourse other than act as some sort of promotion for the ride. Regardless of it was needed or not, here’s Haunted Mansion. Not a sequel or a remake of the original film, it tells a new story that nails the amusement part ride feel but that’s about where the positives end. The mark of a memorable film, good or bad, is one that makes audiences feel something. When it comes to this one, while neither good or bad, this will almost certainly be the case here. Though it boasts an impressive cast, it is utterly unremarkable in every way and has absolutely no business being anywhere near the 2-hour mark. In spite of some fun moments, it is a mess that could never quite find its footing. In the end, it is simply another case of wasted potential and sloppy execution.

Haunted Mansion takes place in New Orleans where a single mother named Gabbie (Dawson) who enlisted the help of a tour guide named Ben (Stanfield), a psychic named Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), a priest named Father Kent (Wilson), and a historian named Bruce (Danny DeVito) to exercise her recently purchased mansion from legions of ghosts. Perhaps the most disappointing part of the film is how it goes about executing that premise. A complete mess, it seemed like the filmmakers didn’t think much further beyond having its wacky characters play off of each other for 2+ hours. While this does admittedly make for some fun moments, there’s not much else to them. Presenting a mashup of themes, ideas, and commentary that didn’t work, they only padded the running time. A film with thin characters and with nothing to say, that fact merely snowballs into one that becomes increasingly dull the longer it goes as it appears satisfied with going through the motions. Moving like an amusement park ride, the tone did the same in a way that was much less fun.

In the midst of the film’s struggle figuring out what to do with its characters, there was also an exploration of the history and lore of the mansion and trying to connect that with the ghosts. Now that side of things was much more interesting and possessed so much more potential. However, the film ultimately chose to lean more on its dull human characters. Putting the two sides together as the film approached the climax did not fix the issues with either of them. Though there were stakes, unsurprisingly, it was tough to care about any of it because the film failed to provide audiences with enough of a reason to do so. Haunted Mansion is a predictable which is essentially the nature of the beast when it comes to these types of films which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but what can make up for that is enough entertaining moments to make that journey more worthwhile. There are some here but it is not nearly enough of them to make it stand out or memorable long after the credits roll.

On a technical level, the VFX were fine, from the ghosts themselves, to the mansion that became another character in the story. Everything else won’t blow anyone away and was just fine and does just enough. In terms of performances, Haunted Mansion is okay. There’s some chemistry there amongst its impressive cast but everyone looked to be purely going through the motions though the material did not do them any favors. Nevertheless, they keep it watchable which is part for the course for a film that never strived to be anything more than watchable. The one performance worth mentioning above all else is DeVito as Bruce whose energy stole scenes.

At the end of the day, Haunted Mansion fails to justify its existence but as a film, it’s fine to a fault. Unmemorable and unremarkable in every way, it will still provide a decent distraction as a streaming watch though there are so many better options out there.

still courtesy of Disney

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.