Haunted Mansion

I was hoping they learned from mistakes they made with the last Haunted Mansion movie. The story was much better than I expected, but they executed it poorly. They tried too hard with their overly silly jokes, cheesy ghost visuals, and painfully obvious shout outs to the ride. They tried to cater their jokes to kids, but in a theater full of children and preteens, the only chuckles I heard came from their elderly grandparents. My seven year old even thought it was too cheesy and was hoping for it to be a little more scary. HM is my favorite ride at Disney but I hated their use of obvious references to cater to the fans. Especially their use of the ride's original script. That was unforgivable.

Haunted Mansion is the 2023 Reboot of the famous spooky Disney ride. It follows around a single mother recruiting people to help her exorcise the ghosts from her mansion. The main focus of the story is on LaKeith Stanfield, a paranormal guide with a tragic past. I love KaKeith as an actor and he carries this movie. He is the emotional center of the story and he brought his "A" game to a movie that he didn't have to try as hard. I got a little teared up a couple of times because of him. The rest of the cast is ok. They mostly serves as comic relief and certain roles for the team and plot. The story is good. They actually have a great explanation on why the family doesn't just leave the mansion. The villain and ghost are great. If you are a fan of the ride, there are a lot of references and nodes but none of them feel really forced. This is a nice fun movie that should be near Halloween, not sure why they released it in July. I enjoyed this way more than the Eddie Murphy movie. Kids will have fun with it and adults can enjoy it too around Halloween.

Family friendly but don't play it too safe!

Younger innocent kids will find it frightening.

But kids who like to be scared will have a blast.

Disney plays the scares cleverly for a family movie with a joke to reduce tension after the frights, without making the film too cheesy. Danny Devito is well utilised here.

Effects amazing. Scary but still good family acceptable ghosts that won't cause younger kids to stay up all night terrified.

Story/ mystery is well told. Great cast and emotional pay off at the end. Again without being too cheesy.

Families will have a ball at this movie.

Bring your kids and cuddle up behind the jackets.

And book a restaurant after because you'll want to go talk about the scares!

My friend who used to work at a movie theatre and who I hadn't seen in a while expressed interest in watching this one so I decided to oblige him on this point. I expected some laughs and innocent scares but while I was impressed with the visual effects, I didn't think there were many funny scenes or lines unless they were said by Danny DeVito. Still, I liked it fine most of the time and so did my friend. Nice to see all the familiar New Orleans landmarks since I and my friend only live a two-hour drive from there. This friend said he liked it better than the Eddie Murphy version which I've yet to watch. In summary, we both say give this Haunted Mansion a look. P. S. I personally thought it was a shame there was no scene of DeVito with his former "Taxi" co-star Marilu Henner who seemed wasted as a NO tourist.

It wanted to score too easy, was way to slow and the jokes were to predictable all the times. Sorry to see they hurried the history plot line so much, which (on itself) would make a more than fine script. Also sorry to see that many of the beloved characters where also 'just there to be there'; if you blinked your eyes you could have mist it.

Nice to see the decor that makes the entourage of the attraction. But that's about it I'm afraid. The acting was almost on amateur level, the lines and the plot to thin. It made me even long for the previous version. Which also had a lot of things to comment on.