Movie critic Bruce Miller says 鈥淗aunted Mansion鈥 has a little too much conversation to be a truly scary film. When it ends, you aren鈥檛 any wiser about the mansion, but you just might want to take a trip to Disney World.
Nine-hundred-ninety-nine ghosts aren鈥檛 the problem with "Haunted Mansion.鈥
It鈥檚 the overly talky script.
Based on the Disneyland attraction, 鈥淢ansion鈥 feels an obligation to include key scenes and characters from the ride. As a result, it takes too long to shoehorn everything in.
Most horror films rely on looks, music and editing. This spends too much time justifying why an astro-physicist, an exorcist, a medium, a professor, a mother and her son are stuck in a house that looks more like a tear-down than a fixer-upper.
In that elaborate script by Katie Dippold, the group tries to figure out who is haunting Gracey Manor and why. That forces them through plenty of chase scenes and special effects that don鈥檛 quite stir the cauldron. Sure, you can recognize moments and characters, but the film doesn鈥檛 give them sufficient backstories.
Instead, the mom (Rosario Dawson) and son (a very charming Chase Dillon) let the 鈥渉elpers鈥 try to lead them down the right path. While Tiffany Haddish has fun as the medium, Jamie Lee Curtis gets the most laughs as Madame Leota and she鈥檚 reduced to very few scenes. That leaves Danny DeVito (a professor), Owen Wilson (an exorcist) and LaKeith Stanfield (the ghostbuster) to pick up the slack. Clearly, director Justin Simien could have winnowed this a bit more and let the ghosts get more of the attention.
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When Jared Leto turns up (as the Hatbox Ghost), the plot turns and 鈥淗aunted Mansion鈥 becomes a descent into something entirely different.
While the technical aspects are good (the sets look much like the ride), they can鈥檛 overcome that unwieldy script.
Stanfield, who鈥檚 an excellent actor, tries his hardest to give this more dimension and emotion. He has his own demons to exorcise and becomes a great player in a game that should have had more rules.
Like 鈥淭he Haunted Mansion鈥 (the Eddie Murphy version), 鈥淗aunted Mansion鈥 needed to start from scratch with a good horror story (paging Jordan Peele), then layer in elements from the ride. That鈥檚 how 鈥淧irates of the Caribbean鈥 sailed. That鈥檚 how this -- another based-in-ride -- film could have launched its own franchise.
What keeps this 鈥淗aunted Mansion鈥 grounded is a lack of surprise. Sure, ghosts pop up in unusual places, but there鈥檚 no clue as to why they鈥檙e here or what they鈥檙e seeking.
It鈥檚 an odd venture. But what it really needs is a theme park just waiting outside the exit doors. Somehow, too much time in one building can play nasty tricks on a person.
聽Bruce Miller is editor of the Sioux City Journal.聽
