Haunted Mansion

A grieving tour guide helps a single mother rid herself of the ghosts haunting her new home in Haunted Mansion. Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield) is a former astrophysicist, who has been giving ghost tours in New Orleans since the tragic death of his wife. Ben is recruited by Father Kent (Owen Wilson) to visit the home of Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son Travis (Chase W. Dillon) and use a special camera Ben developed to try and take photos of the many ghosts haunting Gabbie’s new home.

Ben soon learns that it is impossible to leave the mansion without one of the spirits following him back home. Recruiting some additional help from psychic medium Harriet (Tiffany Haddish) and university professor Bruce Davis (Danny DeVito), Ben tries to find the reason for the hauntings. The investigation leads them to the serial killer Alistair Crump (Jared Leto), whose evil spirit haunts the manor as the Hatbox Ghost.

Haunted Mansion Synopsis

Haunted Mansion is a family-friendly horror-comedy directed by Justin Simien (Dear White People), based on the attraction from the Walt Disney Theme Parks. This is the second film based on the attraction, following the unrelated 2003 film The Haunted Mansion, starring Eddie Murphy. At one point Guillermo del Toro was attached to write and direct this new Haunted Mansion film, but that version ended up in development hell, with Katie Dippold (2016’s Ghostbusters) ending up writing the film.

Haunted Mansion features an all-star cast consisting of LaKeith Stanfield (Knives Out, Judas and the Black Messiah), Rosario Dawson (Clerks III), Owen Wilson (Loki), Tiffany Haddish (Night School, The AfterParty), and Danny DeVito (Dumbo). Like the theme park attraction, the mansion is home to 999 ghosts, though it is the desire of the Hatbox Ghost to reach a thousand souls. Seeing the help of the powerful psychic Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis), reduced to a floating head in a crystal ball, Ben hopes to banish the Hatbox Ghost, before he can claim this final soul.

My Thoughts on Haunted Mansion

Haunted Mansion is pretty much what you would expect for a family-friendly haunted house film. While some of the ghosts in the film have quite scary appearances, there is nothing particularly frightening about the film. In fact, like The Haunted Mansion from two decades ago, this film is played out more for laughs than scares.

This leaves me wondering what it would have been like if Guillermo del Toro’s version of the film reached fruition after originally being announced in 2010. Reportedly Katie Dippold got the writing job after it was decided that del Toro’s script was too scary for young audiences. However, as was proved with 2019’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Guillermo del Toro is perfectly capable of writing scary films aimed at younger audiences.

The common ground between Guillermo del Toro’s version and the Haunted Mansion film that eventually got made is the inclusion of the Hatbox Ghost, who was a discontinued cult favourite from the original 1969 attraction, brought back in 2015. In the film, the Hatbox Ghost is portrayed as a CGI character in the appearance of the animatronic at the attraction. This makes me wonder why Jared Leto was cast as him, especially since his voice is unrecognizable with all the modulation.

While I probably would have better liked Guillermo del Toro’s heightened reality version of the film, Haunted Mansion ends up being a perfectly fine film for families looking for some thrills and chills.

Trailer for Haunted Mansion