Haunted Mansion

Haunted Mansion

A woman and her son enlist a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid their home of supernatural squatters.

  • Released: 2023-07-26
  • Runtime: 123 minutes
  • Genre: Comedy, Family, Fantasy
  • Stars: Rosario Dawson, Chase W. Dillon, Lakeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Jared Leto, Jamie Lee Curtis, Winona Ryder, Hasan Minhaj, Dan Levy
  • Director: Justin Simien
 Comments
  • malmevik77 - 22 April 2024
    A movie that captured the essence of the original attraction.
    The Haunted Mansion (2023)

    A breath of ghostly fresh air, the 2023 version of The Haunted Mansion helped blow the disgusting 2003 version out of our memories, and back to the trash heap it belongs. This is the movie that Haunted Mansion fans deserve. The sheer amount of nods to the ride, both in Florida and California, is myriad. I was very pleased watching this slap-stick meets horror meets drama movie. I felt that this was made using the original "spirit" of the ride.

    The other thing that made this film very well done was the unexpected serious theme of grief and loss. A film that concentrates on silly spooks, and the ability for the living to communicate with them, shows its vulnerability when it is impossible to communicate with those that the main characters have lost.

    Ben, who lost his wife to a car accident, drunkenly runs ghost tours in New Orleans, while newly widowed Gabbie and her son Travis, move into the famous haunted mansion that Disneyland visitors know and love. Hilarity and chaos then ensue as Gabbie and Travis try to get the hauntings to stop utilizing Ben who had successfully invented a way to see the ghosts. With the addition of a "priest", a medium and a professor (yay Danny DeVito!), the group delves into the mythology of the story that Walt Disney's Imagineers put together.

    Also, Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota was brilliant. Seeing her in her costume was good enough to see the progression of Laurie Strode from 45 years ago.

    I absolutely loved this movie. Deep emotion, silliness, theme park ride references and theme park ride mythology all combined for a love letter to my favorite attraction. This is the only movie worth viewing when enjoying all aspects of the ride. It's a bit deep for little kids, but this attraction was never meant for that age demographic.
  • gyjkfk - 8 February 2024
    A lot like the ride!
    This movie has a pace that follows the design of the mansion at Disneyland, the first half of the movie is a bit slow, then about halfway in it picks up greatly! In the original attraction the first half was mostly designed by Claude Coates - a lot of eye candy but not much excitement ( that part of the ride has two skeleton hands and a floating head. The second half was designed on characters created by Marc Davis. The area has the attic and the graveyard, plenty of animatronics. This movie gets better with each viewing, after three times I am liking it more and more. My favorite Easter Egg is the view of the ballroom, where you are looking down from the path of the doombuggies! Some have said the product placement things were bad, while I loved seeing real brands thrown in , it grounds the story better than creating a bunch of fake name companies.
  • simonmag - 17 December 2023
    Not as terrible as people are making out...
    While this won't be vying for any awards and some of the attempts at drawing out any empathy for some of the characters are forced, this is still an entertaining watch. There are some good jokes that might not age very well and pleasing enough performances from the majority of the cast. Those expecting a horror will be disappointed as this, like the original is squarely aimed at Disney's core family demographic - surprised they didn't bring Eddie Murphy back although he was probably still healing from the savaging the original took back in the day.

    There are worse ways to spend time but they could have trimmed some of the running time off.