Haunted Mansion Movie Review

Disney is hoping the numbers on “Haunted Mansion” are strong enough to have “Pirates of the Caribbean” types of spin-offs. That series alone has generated more than $4.5 billion at the box office… and they’re not even done making them! ​

I’m not so sure they can hang their hat on this idea, but Haunted Mansion is humorous and is a lot of fun at times. The cast helps with that, even poor Jamie Lee Curtis, playing Madame Leota, a fortune teller who’s stuck in a giant crystal ball the whole time.

The movie is inspired by a similar Disney theme park ride, but it isn’t for me to say whether it sticks to it as I have never been on the ride. Watching the movie, though, I can see where scary sections of a ride would fit and be exciting and frightening, so if you’ve been on the ride, you probably won’t be disappointed. I believe the movie will give you just as memorable a time as the ride did. The film doesn’t have a lot of jump scares, but if you have really little ones you were planning to take, pay attention to the fact that this is rated PG-13 and take that rating seriously. I think the young ones would be unable to handle certain things presented here. It was actually more frightening than I thought it would be. In fact, “Haunted Mansion” would have been perfect to have put out during Halloween. Why summer? No idea, but I don’t think that was very well thought out.

In this version of the film (there was a movie with the same name previously, starring Eddie Murphy), a single mom named Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her young son, Travis (Chase W. Dillon), who lives in New Orleans, get a great deal on a house. Almost immediately after moving in, they see why. Ghosts. She and Travis could feel their essence, and then see the ghosts, too. A good deal is a good deal, but not if it comes with spirits running around.

Gabbie loves the house and decides to try and make it work by getting some ghost hunters of a group together to help and see if they can run the spirits off. She and Travis have learned where they can go to not encounter the ghosts so as not to bother them and not be bothered BY them. They can make it work, but not in the long term. The situation is getting more uncomfortable and frightening than they can live with.

Attempting to help her through her quandary are Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield), Harriet the psychic (not the spy, Tiffany Haddish), Owen Wilson (Father Kent, a priest) and an archivist played by Danny DeVito.

Ben is an astrophysicist who likes to see the unseen. He has a special camera that can take spectral photographs. Essentially, ghost particles. He’s the first to show up at her house and she warns him that once he comes in, “There’s no going back.” What everyone experiences after crossing her doorstep is they’re followed by the ghosts and aren’t left alone. Eventually, they realize they have no choice but to return and try fixing things.

Medium Harriet and Father Kent explain that the ghosts who are trapped there are running from something. You then learn the house’s history, the owners and what happened to them throughout the years. Harriet learns of a William Gracie, who keeps the spirits there with them. She knows of this when they find the séance room. He only needs one more soul to trap them all there forever with his terrible evil to reign upon them. The ending isn’t what I thought it would be, but I thought it was a lot of fun, and you will, too. Watch it this weekend. It doesn’t fit the season, but it’s an amusing story with witticisms coming from actors who know how to make you giggle.

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