The Haunted Mansion (2003 film)
2003
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Jul 28, 2023 · A star-studded but shoddy horror fantasy comedy based on the Disney ride, this film follows a single mother and her son who try to exorcise the spirits of a haunted mansion. The film has a fun-loving Gothic tone, but the script is forced and flat, the cast underutilized, and the climax flat.
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Jul 28, 2023 · Read Critics Reviews. Haunted Mansion is a fun blend of horror and comedy with a great cast and a story that'll be extra entertaining for fans of the ride that inspired it. Read Audience...
- (250)
- Justin Simien
- PG-13
- Lakeith Stanfield
Jul 27, 2023 · Like that movie, “Haunted Mansion” features a ragtag group of likable eccentrics battling digital ghosts, but it’s fright-free and far less funny. It’s all setup and no payoff.
- 122 min
- Manohla Dargis
Jul 28, 2023 · Haunted Mansion: Directed by Justin Simien. With LaKeith Stanfield, Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish. A single mom named Gabbie hires a tour guide, a psychic, a priest and a historian to help exorcise her newly bought mansion after discovering it is inhabited by ghosts.
- (18K)
- Comedy, Drama, Family
- Justin Simien
- 2023-07-28
- A ghost story with horror and soul
- What's the best gateway horror movie?
- Verdict
- Haunted Mansion Review
- More Reviews by Matt Donato
- IGN\r Recommends
By Matt Donato
Updated: Jul 25, 2023 9:05 pm
Posted: Jul 25, 2023 9:00 pm
Disney’s second crack at adapting its famous Haunted Mansion attraction into a cinematic experience fares much better than its Eddie Murphy-starring predecessor. In the hands of writer Katie Dippold and director Justin Simien, 2023’s Haunted Mansion is a soulful New Orleans ghost story that expertly speaks to younger audiences about death, grief's stranglehold, and the afterlife. Dippold finds a tender beating heart at the core of her screenplay without sacrificing the gateway horror ambitions of this PG-13 spookshow. Haunted Mansion successfully balances emotional sweetness and just-frightening-enough spectral scares with a Disneyfication of genre tropes, becoming a fun-filled scary movie for (almost) the entire family.
An eclectic ensemble – led by LaKeith Stanfield in the role of Louisiana tour guide Ben Matthias – squares off against the 999 spirits inhabiting single mother Gabbie’s (Rosario Dawson) new residence. Gabbie and her social-outcast son Travis (Chase Dillon) try to flee from the estate when they discover its paranormal infestation — they’re no fools. Dippold acknowledges how silly it’d be for a family to cohabitate with unpredictable entities and writes characters who hardly want to become Ghostbusters. Still, they have to because the film’s rules cleverly establish a logical reason that keeps everyone from a full-sprint exit. From Danny DeVito’s oddball college professor Bruce to Owen Wilson’s suspiciously chill Father Kent to Tiffany Haddish’s cost-effective medium Harriet, there’s no glaring weak link. Haunted Mansion is one of those comedies where everyone seemed to enjoy their time on set, which makes for a loosey-goosey cast playing off one another’s reactions to supernatural absurdity with easygoing chemistry.
As a film that handles tough conversations about a peaceful, even celebratory afterlife, Haunted Mansion does a tremendous job softening the blow of crushing mortality. Death can be a petrifying concept for any audience, let alone youngsters, but Haunted Mansion handles existential dread and immense grief with the fearlessness of a showstopper like Coco. In the context of storytelling (and without forcing beliefs down anyone’s throat), Dippold uses Ben’s broken heart as an entry point into discussions that blur the lines between “life” and “death” as we perceive. The themes of Haunted Mansion are comforting, like mouthfuls of spicy-savory jambalaya warming our hungry stomachs.
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The first attempt at spinning a movie out of the Haunted Mansion was DOA, but Justin Simien finds new life in the premise. Gateway horror can be so fickle because it needs to impress viewers of all ages while gearing scares toward lower tolerances. Haunted Mansion does precisely this with a cast of characters battling their own existential demons i...
Review scoring
great
A soulful ghost story that does an unexpectedly solid job speaking to younger audiences about the afterlife, nailing the film’s appropriately spooky gateway-horror ambitions.
Matt Donato
- Matt Donato
Jul 25, 2023 · ‘Haunted Mansion’ Review: Disney Horror Comedy Channels Its Spooky Illusions From Original Ride. Justin Simien's creative, post-'Pirates' reboot of the Disneyland attraction features decent...
Jul 25, 2023 · Peter Bradshaw. Tue 25 Jul 2023 17.00 EDT. T here’s scope for a genuinely disturbing and subversive horror set in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, the attraction which first opened at the original...
