The Haunted House

Haunted House is a true Disney's classic. Mickey is that innocent,funny and sometimes naughty mouse that finds refuge in a old and of course haunted house. Several times Mickey appears to look at the camera when he finds himself in a difficult situation or when he gets surprised by an event. This short movie, made in 1929, has amazing special effects for such an early cartoon. I enjoyed the story simplicity but interesting. I consider this cartoon the best of Disney's black and white era. Also it prompts you to ask yourself how the current TV cartoons, like the horrible Cow and Chicken, has taken the minds of our children.

Cartoons are tough to assign as genre, but this is one, with actual dancing skeletons and other tropes. Enjoyable if repetitive, but it's only 7 minutes or less. Great animation... FREE ONLINE.

On August 29, 1929, Walt Disney publicly screened the first film in his "Silly Symphonies" series, 'The Skeleton Dance (1929).' Needless to say, it was a rousing success, and ensured a further decade of similar musical short films. 'Haunted House (1929)' was released on August 1, 1929, and is similar in many ways, not least because a lot of the footage originally intended for 'The Skeleton Dance' was instead recycled into this Mickey Mouse musical horror short. Though this recycling is rather obvious in the film's second half, in which our mousy hero disappears for a while, I nonetheless enjoyed the film for its vivid imagination, and, especially in its opening minutes, eerie atmosphere. This was one example, at least, where Disney's work benefited from black-and-white animation {the studio's first outing in three-strip Technicolor was 'Flowers and Trees (1932)'}, and the creepy shadows of the haunted mansion bear the sinister atmosphere of a 1930s Universal horror, with the whistling wind providing an ominous air, at least until the music starts up.

Truth be told, 'Haunted House' is the first Mickey Mouse cartoon that I can remember watching, though a reasonable portion of my childhood would no doubt have been occupied in a similar manner. I wish that less of the film had been concerned with dancing skeletons, because Mickey's initial exploration of the dark mansion is stylistically creative and almost genuinely frightening. A lingering trace of the silent era is noticeable when the house's lighting goes out, and Mickey is illuminated only by a circular ring of light that calls to mind the camera iris favoured by so many early filmmakers. A scary Grim Reaper then enters the room, points to an organ against the wall and instructs our hero to "play." Mickey doesn't really know how to, but he nonetheless obliges, and soon the army of skeleton are tapping merrily across the room, using their bones as musical instruments. This Mickey Mouse short could have been better, but it has some good atmosphere, and is well worth watching.

Haunted House (1929)

*** (out of 4)

Mickey Mouse is caught in a blizzard when he is forced into an old house, which turns out to be a cavern for skeletons. The main ghoul makes Mickey play the organ while the skeletons dance the night away. I didn't find too many things in this film to be funny but there's no denying the amount of imagination and creativity on display here. The look and atmosphere of the castle makes this a very good horror film and it fits perfectly into the genre more than a lot of non-Disney films. The skeleton dances are quite lively and amusing with Mickey's attempted escape even better. The best looking sequence of the film happens at the start when bats fly towards the screen. The films has a lot of connections with The Skeleton Dance from the same year.

One of the chief features of these early cartoons was dance. Take a piece of music and have an animate or an inanimate object begin to hoof it. In this one, Mickey is caught in a storm and seeks refuge in a spooky old house. It is inhabited by skeletons. They do what they can to frighten him, with great success. But it turns out they are looking for music. Mickey is placed on a stool and forced to play an organ. Then the dancing starts. Using bones as the motif, the undead do quite a good job. There are several surprises along the way. I enjoyed it very much.