Haunted Mansion (2023) Review

 "I'm gonna light a vanilla candle and it's gonna be a game-changer."

-Gabbie

Disgraced astrophysicist Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stenfield) is hired to help investigate a potential haunting at a mansion owned by Gabbie (Rosario Dawson).  He doesn't find anything, but after leaving the mansion, Ben discovers that ghosts have followed him home to get him to go back to the mansion.  Ben and Gabbie assemble a team to investigate the haunting so they can all leave the mansion in peace, but discover a sinister force behind everything.

What Works:

I'm a big fan of the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland.  I would say it's my favorite ride at the theme park.  I just love the spooky atmosphere and all of the care and detail put into the ride.  I really enjoyed the references to the ride in this movie.  I didn't find them distracting or anything.  They were just extra flavor that I appreciated, especially the use of chairs that look similar to the carts you sit in on the ride itself.

I also really enjoyed the atmosphere of the movie, especially in the later parts when all of the ghosts come out.  The lighting and the music just get me in the Halloween spirit, which is my favorite time of year.

The best part of the movie is LaKeith Stanfield's performance.  He is still grieving the loss of someone very close to him, which is central to his emotional arc over the course of the film.  Stanfield does a fantastic job with the emotional stuff and I actually teared up a little bit.  The emotional elements of the film work much better than I thought they would.

Finally, I really like the initial premise of the film.  Once you enter the Haunted Mansion, you can leave, but ghosts will follow you and haunt you until you return to the Mansion.  That's a great premise and a strong way to kick off the plot of the movie.  Plus it's a reference to the hitchhiking ghosts from the ride and making a reference an important plot point is the best way to have references in your film.

What Sucks:

While the emotional elements of the film work, the comedic elements are not nearly as successful.  I laughed a couple of times, but most of the humor fell flat.  It's just not very funny and horror-comedies need to be funny.

The movie needed to be more focused on exploring the Mansion.  That's the main point of the ride.  You journey through the Mansion and see all the spooky sights.  There isn't much of that in the movie.  There's really only one exploration scene and that is the attic sequence.  More of that would have been ideal.

There's a whole sequence where Ben, Father Kent (Owen Wilson), and Travis (Chase W. Dillon) leave the Mansion to go to a different mansion to find an important artifact.  I have no idea why this sequence is in the movie other than to give Winona Ryder and Daniel Levy cameos.  Just leave the characters in the main Mansion and have them find the artifact there.  This way we get more Mansion exploration and the plot can stay focused on one location with the main characters.  This was just a weird and unnecessary detour to take.

Finally, the movie is too long.  It does not need to be two hours long.  There's a good 20 minutes that could have been cut.  Most movies should be shorter and this is definitely one of them.

Verdict:

As a fan of the Haunted Mansion ride, I enjoyed elements of this movie.  The atmosphere, premise, and Stanfield's performance are all great.  However, it's just not very funny, it's unfocused, and doesn't make full use of the location.  It's fine, but wait for it to come out on Disney Plus.  You don't need to spend money to see it in theaters.

 6/10: Okay