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This is an archive article published on July 28, 2023
Haunted Mansion movie review: This film neither rattles your bones, nor tickles the funny ones
Haunted Mansion movie review: With few scares and even fewer laughs, some inspired performances keep us invested.
A screenshot from Haunted Mansion trailer
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Haunted Mansion movie review: This film neither rattles your bones, nor tickles the funny ones
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Since this film is inspired by a Disneyland theme park attraction by the same name, and since it features a child (Dillon) in a starring role, how scary is it allowed to be?
Unsurprisingly, not much, a gap that writer Katie Dippold, with several well-received all-women films such as the Ghostbusters reboot and The Heat behind her, tries to fill with comedy. But, as full of skeletons as it is, Haunted Mansion neither rattles your bones nor tickles the funny ones.
After building up New Orleans as a fitting setting, for being a town that marks death as the celebration of a new beginning, the film quickly introduces us to the aforesaid child, Travis, and his mother Gabbie (Dawson). Travis has been affected by a recent separation from his father, and Gabbie outside the film world would consider twice before driving their children up to their new house – a deserted, cobwebbed mansion in the middle of nowhere – in the dark hours. Not this one.
One thing leads to another, and Gabbie, looking around for help, ends up collecting an assortment of ghostbusters at her home – including Ben (Stanfield), Kent (Wilson), Harriet (Haddish) and Bruce (DeVito), who are, respectively, an astro-physicist-turned ghost tour guide (like the film says, “both help see the unseen”), a priest, a psychic and an expert in haunted houses.
The rest of the story concerns them fighting ghosts, befriending some, and facing off against a particularly deadly one, with some help from a powerful medium (played by Curtis in an elaborate get-up).
At two-hour plus, either the ghosts should have some life or the lives in there should turn ghostly to keep us invested. While neither happens, a few laughs here and there – with Haddish particularly effective, Wilson painfully not, and Winona Ryder putting in a blink-and-miss appearance – help you survive.
Haunted Mansion movie cast: LaKeith Stanfield, Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chase Dillon, Jared Leto
Haunted Mansion movie director: Justin Simien
Haunted Mansion movie rating: 1.5 stars
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