Film Review: Haunted Mansion

In a world full of sequels, prequels, and IP-equels, it is no shock that a movie like Haunted Mansion exists. A new adaptation of the famous Disneyland ride, this version of the Haunted Mansion comes via a collaboration with Justin Simien. Attempting to be your child’s first horror movie, the film doesn’t muster much in the way of being memorable, even with that low bar to clear.

Ben Matthias is a young astrophysicists who happens to meet and fall in love with a young woman who so happens to lead ghost tours in New Orleans. After he death, he falls into a depression, abandoning his plans to try and document the paranormal.

He’s brought back into the world of the paranormal when a priest asks him to help document the goings on in a haunted house owned by a mother and her son. When their claims are verified, they assemble a motley crew to try an rid the house of it’s most villainous foe.

Haunted Mansion certainly cost Disney a decent grip of money but for what was put on the screen it certainly doesn’t feel like the visual feast it could have been. There’s certainly call backs to the ride, but past that, despite the amazing production design the movie feels rather empty. A home with over 900 ghosts and the entire film feels bare. Compare that to the ride which is chock full of interesting details and amazing sites.

This leads to the effect of the movie feeling neither scary nor family friendly. There’s no wow factor here and it’s a movie that is scary in theory rather than in practice and the script can’t manage to do what it needs to sustain. It’s very obvious via the casting that the movie wanted to do something interesting with having 4 of the 7 principal roles filled with Black actors. Yet, The Haunted Mansion doesn’t even slightly glance in the direction to do anything of note.

Justin Simien has a gift for wrangling good performances out of ensembles, but in the case of this film it’s as if that skill floated into the ether. While LaKeith is excellent, everyone else seems to be acting in silos around each other in way that’s often times disconcerting (Tiffany Haddish most of all suffers).

The movie’s saving grace, quite literally is LaKeith Stanfield. The Oscar nominated actor is given way more to do in the film than anticipated and rewards the movie with a really solid performance that shows off his range. He’s got a particular energy as an actor and this movie uses his entire repertoire of skills in a very engaging way.

It’s too bad the other elements of the film couldn’t meet LaKeith’s level of commitment and authenticity because Disney has shown the ability to bring great level of craft and heart to previous live actions. But that feels like it was completely missing in Haunted Mansion.