Haunted Mansion (2023): A Tour guide, A Psychic, A Priest, And A Historian Walk Into A Room

Haunted Mansion (2023) follows the simple premise of a mysterious haunted house trapping its inhabitants, who search for all the deep, dark secrets behind the haunting. While there is a ton more nuance throughout this film, the undoubtedly basic, bare bones plot is enough to make the most casual filmgoer feel at ease… right before everything goes off the rails in what seems to be the weirdest movie of 2023. 

Oddly enough, the bizarre experience watching this film actually starts before the Disney logo even appears. For anyone who wanted to watch this in theaters, the time to do that was Summer of 2023. You know, summer? Spooky season right? As strange as that sounds, there should be some sort of consolation prize given to those working on the Disney+ side of things for giving this an October streaming release date. Outside of the hauntingly mild marketing campaign, the absolutely boneheaded decision to release this film in the summer made this one of the biggest flops in recent history. But, now that the season is finally right, how does this film hold up as Disney’s newest Halloween go-to?

By far, the highest peak this film reaches is from a casting and acting perspective. First off, the casting for this film is impeccable. LaKeith Stanfield has been making a name for himself over the last decade or so, so seeing him so well cast as the lead in this film made a lot of sense. Additionally, big names like Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson and Jamie Lee Curtis help give this supporting cast a lot of star power, with each of these actors doing an excellent job regardless of how small or large their role is. Stanfield in particular does an excellent job in mixing the action, comedy, and emotion into his performance, highlighting the multifaceted capabilities of his acting potential. Unfortunately, there is one huge casting mishap, Jared Leto. Without spoiling his role, the issue is not actually with Leto’s performance or anything he does in the film, it’s the fact that you would never know he was in this. His character is mostly CGI, with Leto providing a voice that doesn’t scream “hey is that Jared Leto?” Regardless of your feelings about Leto or his performances over the last few years, he is still a big name in Hollywood. So, to see his casting wasted on a character that literally could have been played by anyone, is a truly bizarre decision.

Where this film really starts to fall apart is the filmmaking itself, with particularly obnoxious editing and cinematography. These issues are largely persistent in the first half of the film, making it extremely odd to discover that there was only one director involved. One segment in particular is exemplary of this problem: Early on in the film LaKieth Stanfield’s character goes into the mansion to speak with Rosario Dawson’s character, leading to a five to ten minute segment where he walks around the mansion to see if he can find any evidence of ghosts. This segment is meant to build suspense and intrigue, but falls flat mainly due to the exhausting editing and cinematography. This segment features three separate camera techniques that go together like ketchup on a banana. At some points there are long, Dutch-angle shots, which are typically used to convey that things are not right with what is being shown on screen. This is all well and good for a film like this; however, these shots are constantly intermixed with standard shots like close-ups and medium close-ups. This immediately makes this feel disjointed; however, it doesn’t stop there. Mixed in with these shots are random spurts of shaky cam and what feels like an almost multi-camera sit-com feel. Again, these several different shot types can normally be excused; however, these shots are constantly transitioned between over the course of what should be an easy to capture moment. This almost feels like afterthought editing for mistakes that were made early on in the filmmaking process that the filmmakers needed in the film, but were not able to reshoot. Nevertheless, this is an example of the kind of filmmaking that plagues this movie.

Finally, the film definitely struggles from uneven pacing, mostly due to a script that bounces all over the place. Without question, the main character is LaKieth Stanfield’s Ben Matthias. The film opens on Ben’s backstory and proceeds to delve a little more into his character before Rosario Dawson’s Gabbie and her son, Chase W. Dillon’s Travis even enter the house. While Stanfield’s performance is strong, the focus on his character who is only tangentially connected to the mansion is an odd choice. This requires the film to constantly bounce between perspectives, which is where the film commits a cardinal sin of Haunted Mansion filmmaking: Making the characters constantly leave the mansion. This constantly shifting focus is not made any better by the tonal shifts, which range from slapstick comedy to horrific jump scares. This is all made in an effort to maintain the family tone for this Disney flick; yet, it only serves a detriment to the film itself.