First Take: Haunted Mansion - Disney’s identity crisis continues, and it ain’t great

SYNOPSIS: A single mom named Gabbie hires a tour guide, a psychic, a priest and a historian to help exorcise her newly bought mansion after discovering it is inhabited by ghosts.

I’ve covered this industry for a decade now, and it is not very often that I ask ‘how and why did this film get greenlit’? Yesterday, I had just those thoughts. Opening a HALLOWEEN film in August stinks of streaming service manipulation, and having now seen Haunted Mansion, and its near 10 year stint in development hell after being proposed as a Del Toro project of all things, I can see why Disney wanted to wash their hands of this now so it can get the streaming release in October.

This is, to put it simply, not a great film - and that’s not knocking the ability of Justin Simien, this is his feature debut after all, but at 2 hours 3 minutes this feels a bit long for a Disney effort like this. Then there’s the script - the core of this film’s issues. I like Katie Dippold’s work, but this is absolutely shocking. Yes, it gives us the 6 laugh test, but at the same time, some of the worst implementation of product placement I have EVER seen in a film, ruining emotional setpieces with callouts to CVS, Yankee Candle, Burger King, and of all things Tater Tots - did Covid make Disney so desperate that they needed to take all these deals, because this is just shameless. At least Jeffrey Waldron’s cinematography is alright, and Kris Bowers’ score does the job, because that script left almost as foul of a taste in my mouth as the operations of the cinema I reviewed the film at.

As for the cast - it is great to see LaKeith Stanfield leading in a film as big as this, even if the quality of the writing is questionable, and it is a stacked supporting cast too: Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish, and Danny DeVito are there, with bit parts for Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto, and a standout young performer in Chase Dillon rounding out the core of the on-screen talent. They all do an admirable job with what they’ve been given, but ultimately this is a dull, formulaic and predictable film that will do its 45 days in cinema and eventually go on Disney+ in time for Halloween, and that’s where this film fumbled: it wasn’t made for the big screen. It was made for streaming. I’m not angry, I am just very, very disappointed.

THE VERDICT

Haunted Mansion is not great. It’ll find its audience once it hits Disney+ in a little over a month, but in terms of a cinema release, the identity crisis continues at the house of mouse - can they salvage it with talent currently unable to promote films? Only time will tell, but right now, that house needs to be exorcised of its Iger-shaped demons.

RATING: 2/5