What’s It About
A single mom named Gabbie hires a tour guide, a psychic, a priest, and a historian to help exorcise their newly bought mansion; after discovering it is inhabited by ghosts.
MOVIESinMO REVIEW
With all the buzz surrounding this movie and no mention of the Eddie Murphy version from 2003, it made me wonder if they wanted to distance themselves or hope people forget so no one would compare them. Well, there is nothing to worry about, considering Murphy’s version was so bad that most people forgot (or wanted to forget) it even existed. Twenty years later, and here we are again. This movie, story, and cast are better than the one mentioned earlier. A single mom named Gabbie and her son, Travis, bought the home, hoping to start a new life. Upon discovering their newly purchased house was haunted, they immediately left the premises only to return because of a curse. That’s how this film starts, and honestly, that first fifteen minutes was better than the entire Eddie Murphy version. The special effects are significant, the music is mostly hip-hop, and the story may not be the best, but it works for a comedy. The things that bring this version of Haunted Mansion down are the cringe-worthy way they try to infuse different types of humor while hoping nobody notices how badly they don’t blend. Danny DeVito and Tiffany Haddish are great comedic actors but have completely different styles. For this movie, it just doesn’t work. Owen Wilson’s character is so generic he adds zero to the overall story. Rosario Dawson and Chase W. Dillon, as Gabbie and son Travis, respectively, are the homeowners but are treated like secondary characters. Jamie Lee Curtis plays a character stuck in a crystal ball used mainly for exposition. LaKeith Stanfield plays Ben, the astrophysicist. His character is the most developed and the best acted. Ben’s character seems so out of place in this movie, but yet, the only person worth watching. Lastly, the alpha ghost, Alistair Crump, is played by Jared Leto. In my opinion, Mr. Leto is usually box office kryptonite. But his screen time in Haunted Mansion is so brief it should be listed as a cameo performance. Overall, this film is decent if shown in five or ten-minute snippets. Haunted Mansion 2023 is a mish-mash of ok performances that should have never been placed within the same story.
OUR RATING – A TRANSPARENT 5
MEDIA
- Genre – Comedy
- Street date
- Digital – October 4th, 2023
- DVD/Blu-Ray – October 17th, 2023
- Video – 1080p
- Screen size – 2.39:1
- Sound – English: Dolby Atmos,
- English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit), French: Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital Plus 7.1
- Subtitles – English SDH, Spanish
Extras
FEATURETTES:
- Making Haunted Mansion (13:05) Hear from cast, crew and filmmakers about creating this grim grinning adventure based on the world-famous ride. See how the ghosts were “brought to life,” what role new technology played, and how the wildly popular attraction inspired the film’s design.
- 999 Happy Haunts (7:05) There are 999 Happy Haunts inside the Disney Parks’ attraction…but always room for one more! See all the Easter eggs (well, maybe not all of them) where characters big, small, alive, departed, human and otherwise appear in both the movie and the ride.
Take a look at some moments that passed on before the final version of Haunted Mansion was finished.
- Carol (0:45)
- 1 Star (0:44)
- Harriet’s House Of Intuition (3:11)
- They Say The Place Is Haunted (1:16)
- Between Realms (1:42)
- Crump Manor (1:07)
- Emergency Baptism (1:01)
- A Good Head For Business (0:32)
DELETED SCENES:
GAG REEL:
- Who knew making a scary movie could be so funny!