The Haunted Mansion

Release Date: November 26, 2003

Watch Date Date: October 7, 2023

“Eddie Murphy stars as a real estate agent whose family comes face-to-face with 999 grim, grinning ghosts in creepy old Gracey Manor. Now with the help of supernatural psychic Madame Leota (Jennifer Tilly), they hilariously battle to break the mansion of it’s age-old curse…and do it before the clock strikes 13.”

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    One thing you should know about me, I’m crazy about Disneyland, I am very specifically crazy about The Haunted Mansion. Our house décor is completed by various Haunted Mansion themed pieces, my apron mimics the maid costume they wear, my jewelry box has Madame Leota’s face on it, and it plays The Haunted Mansion theme music. I love The Haunted Mansion, I love it in all it’s glory. I will ride it multiple times a day. It is perfection to me, and I am amazed every single time I’m on it. Hell, I’d go in the line and not even get to ride the ride, just to explore it all.

    One thing you should know about Bob, he’s never been on The Haunted Mansion. Never associated it with it in anyway. I buy tombstone or gargoyle theme knickknacks and he goes, well that’s my wife I guess. He’s never questioned it, never wondered. My husband is, you could say, a good guy.

    So when the new ‘Haunted Mansion’ movie came out on Disney+ this week, just in time for Spooky Season, I asked him, begged really, if we could please watch it this weekend. He wouldn’t have to forfeit a pick or anything, but I think it’d be so much fun. And he agreed, readily, because see above, good husband.

    And then, when I realized we could make a double feature of it and watch 2003’s ‘The Haunted Mansion’ have some fun comparing the two as we watched, he even agreed to a double feature because, again, he’s a fantastic husband.

    Of course, he’d never been on the ride before, so I had to correct that and we watched a 4K ride along on YouTube while I constantly paused to explain to him how amazing what he was looking at was and the tricks and everything. I wanted him to get the references I knew were scattered throughout the 2003 film, and that I assumed would be at the very least sprinkled through the film that came out 20 years later. I think it was a good call.

    This movie is not extremely popular, and I can see why, but it does kind of feel like a love letter to The Haunted Mansion ride. Starring Eddie Murphy, it’s pretty obvious from the get-go that it’s going to lead more on the fun family adventure/comedy genres than the horror, and that’s okay, because The Haunted Mansion is equal parts both.

    I think the ending is weak, and I don’t get any chemistry between any of the characters. There’s a lot of predictability in the plot, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, at least not for me. I don’t want to be bogged down in plot, I want to spend time trying to notice and point out every single Haunted Mansion reference I can find. Which I did. I’m not sure if that added to Bob’s enjoyment or not…

    I don’t think this film is on par, at all, with other Disneyland ride based films, obviously Jungle Cruise and the entire Pirates of the Caribbean franchise blow this out of the water, but I think that it gets a lot more hate than it necessarily deserves. It’s a fun family movie. There’s a lot more references to the ride than there were in Jungle Cruise. It tries very hard to incorporate and give plot to the Disneyland version of the ride, which does not have a plot at all when compared to the other Disneypark’s versions. It gives reason, maybe unnecessary, but it does, for the wedding dress in the attic, for Mr. Gracey’s untimely demise, for the mansion being haunted in the first place.

    Like I said, it feels like a love letter. And so maybe if you didn’t love The Haunted Mansion you might think it was kind of a weak movie, and maybe if you do love The Haunted Mansion but think it strayed too far from the source material then you’d think it could have done a better job at representing the ride you love. But for me, personally, I think it does an admirable job of shoving in every single reference that it can, sometimes in detriment to the plot, making sure we visit every single location and see every single iconic Haunted Mansion spook. And that’s all I ever wanted from a Haunted Mansion film, to be able to see some of my favorite Disney characters come to life on the big screen, and to feel comfortable and familiar with them like they were old friends.

    Bob enjoyed it, with his literally one virtual experience of the actual ride. Maybe he enjoyed watching how excited I got about it all more than he enjoyed the movie, but I don’t care if that means I get to watch it more, or get more approval to spend exorbitant amounts of money on The Haunted Mansion merch at the online Disney store. He did promise we’d go to Disneyland in the future, a trip I think that I’d have to include in the blog, and so, if nothing else, I’m going to walk away with that knowledge in my back pocket.

    Onward to the next Haunted Mansion film, and let’s hope that it’s just as fun as the first.

    (As an aside, I am extremely aware that there is a Muppet’s Haunted Mansion film, but it didn’t really fit the theme of the evening. Expect it to come up on the rotation pretty quickly though.)