Haunted Mansion Review

July 29, 2023 at 8:50pm
By Jason Stettner

It’s time for another round of haunting as the classic Disney ride once again gets a transformation into a film. Haunted Mansion 2023 follows a single mom named Gabbie (Rosario Dawnson) trying to start fresh with her young son. The house they move into has other ideas as it begins to haunt them and seems to have deep codependency issues as it follows them wherever they go demanding that they return.

In trying to deal with this newfound issue within their lives the two begin to assemble some others to help deal with the haunting. You’ve got a tour guide Ben (LaKeith Stanfield) who acts as sort of the main character as this is definitely an ensemble effort and then also near the front Father Kent (Owen Wilson).

They’re rounded out by a psychic named Harriet (Tiffany Haddish) and then a historian named Bruce (Danny DeVito) who has heart conditions so he probably shouldn’t be in this situation. It’s a lot to note but it does establish the characters at play here and yes they all significantly share the overall experience.

That’s where the aspect of this movie being a tad too long comes into play. It feels a bit bloated as there are just so many events that happen and not all of them really felt necessary. It just went on and on without any real sense of tension which was a tad disappointing as there seemed to be so much potential for that sort of thing.

This is perhaps on the spookier side of things for Disney but it’s not necessarily scary so any type of audience could jump into this one. This in turn sort of removes elements of tension or scares instead trying to move into more of the comedic side of things.

Which at times this certainly did provide some laughs but I was also left perplexed at the quantity of product placement type references, that was so weird and stuck out to me. Performances wise everyone seemed fine and embraced the wackiness of what was going on. At times there was decent chemistry, in other moments not so much.

The visual aesthetic of the film matched the darker tones of the plot and in general this did embody the ride fairly well. I’m sure the more hardcore fans of the Disneyland attraction will most certainly be excited at the various references. The ghosts do look great here and in general the world they created was interesting. Some of the ending sequences felt like green screen cut outs but other than that it was largely fine.

The Conclusion

Haunted Mansion is an alright film, it comes across as excessively long and it wasn’t really anything too gripping to take in. It provided some laughs and decent entertainment. If you’re a fan of the ride I’m sure you’ll appreciate the many references layered throughout this one. I did however feel with this movie that it was just one scene after another and it didn’t really provide anything too thrilling.

I felt that if things were tightened this could have been a stronger offering. It’s fun at times, with some laughs at moments but it was sort of uncomfortable to sit through and I was rather bored by the end of it. It’s a weird middle ground as while I believe most will have fun with it I’m also not entirely sure that it’ll be for everyone.

It just doesn’t have some sort of really attention grabbing aspect to it. At times being just the ride coming alive, other times an emotional film and then also really aiming to be comedic. Almost too many concepts at once that sort of pull this apart in not the best of ways.

Haunted Mansion Review at Theater with Standard Viewing
Screening Provided by Disney

Rating Overall: 5.0