After volunteering to help a widow and her young son, a grieving former scientist finds himself in trouble. Filled with family-friendly humor, Haunted Mansion captures the spooky fun of the theme park ride. LaKeith Stanfield leads an all-star cast in a paranormal adventure that is rich in visual effects. The film greatly improves on the 2003 adaptation by never resorting to silliness. The same cannot be said for Haunted Mansion as it has complex plot and strong emotional heart. It lags occasionally but still manages to keep smiles and shivers abundant.
Ben Matthias (Stanfield) is a NASA scientist who develops optics for space research while in New Orleans, falls in love with an enchanting city tour guide named Alyssa (Charity Jordan), who believes in supernatural beings such as ghosts among others. They both fall hard after just a small affair with each other. Shattered Ben leaves his career behind him and takes over Alyssa’s thriving company some time later. His heartbroken demeanor and sarcastic comebacks doesn’t damper tourist enthusiasm for creepy endeavors.
Meanwhile, they arrive at their new battered home where Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) is living with her little boy Travis (Chase W. Dillon). This mansion was almost free; it will surely help them start life anew after their personal tragedy. Scared Travis feels chased by something within the house. Gabby thinks he is hallucinating but eventually realizes he isn’t lying about this issue too seriously. They run back towards their car but are not alone.
Father Kent (Owen Wilson), a priest hired by Gabbie arrives to see Ben one day as he intends to chase away any demons from the place she lives at. Initially skeptical, Ben is about to order him out until Father Kent tells him what they are going to gain from that work which makes him change his mind suddenly because of easy cash offered there by Gabbies mother. Due to his specialty camera, Father Kent believes that Ben is able to capture the apparitions which might appear in form of photographs. He doesn’t believe Gabbie’s warnings and agrees to meet with her and Travis. She says be sure before you cross this threshold.
Ben walked through the house making like he was taking pictures. They seem nice but are clearly out of their minds and wasting his time. Ben returns home only to find he brought something along with him. The terrifying encounter has Ben back at Gabbie’s door step. At Gabbies, he finds Father Kent again. Not listening to Gabbie has put Ben into the same freaky situation as her own making him regret why she never gave it any thought at all about what she said some moments ago in his life then when it happens agony comes on his way. This group must fight off these spirits that haunt them around and learn why they cannot leave them alone because they won’t leave them alone until everyone dies in fact, let us get help from a college professor (Danny Devito) and wacky psychic (Tiffany Haddish).
Haunted Mansion had a lot of hurdles to overcome for director Justin Simien (Dear White People) and screenplay writer Katie Dippold (The Heat, Parks and Recreation). It must make Haunted Mansion funny yet scary all at one go. However, considering the fact that it is mainly aimed at children, Haunted Mansion could not be too scary otherwise it would alienate its target audience completely. Furthermore, there was also the challenge of working with the popularity of a ride that has been successful for six decades worldwide in Disney parks., Hence; making this film without being silly or cheesy just had to take care of those aspects by including several pleasant jump-out-of-your-seat scenes which surprisingly were performed quite well themselves sometimes
The ensemble cast is great, but Stanfield does a banner job giving the film emotional heft. Ben is a broken man wallowing in misery and loneliness. He doesn’t see any future with even a modicum of joy. Gabbie also tries to rebuild her life with Travis. He’s friendless, bullied at school, and now confronted by menacing ghosts within his supposed abode of safety. By care, nursing and confidence Ben has become another new father figure. Travis needs someone to depend on him as all troubled kids do. To help Travis deal with tragedy and approach death in an intellectual manner Ben takes a heroic turn.
The plot of Haunted Mansion becomes more elaborate as it soon evolves into a full-blown mystery story. The characters are transformed into detectives who investigate the ghastly end of their predecessors’. This pulls back another curtain revealing true nemesis pulling the strings behind them.. Then they have to figure out how to fight against and win over an evil person who is doing all these things unapologetically.
There’s too much going on here for its own good. The movie runs just over two hours long. That time doesn’t get wasted on inconsequential nonsense. The clues add up and require some attention to be able to know what’s going on. It goes overboard juggling too many different pieces simultaneously Simien could’ve streamlined the narrative without sacrificing the funny, sincere, or creepy stuff.
From the perspective of newcomers, Haunted Mansion works splendidly – I went in cold with scarce familiarity about the ride itself and deliberately forgotten memories about the dreadful previous iteration. Conversations after watching it among contented fans of this text/book show thumbs up across board The filmmakers tick every box; providing chills that just hit you right in your stomachs making it fun for everyone
Watch free movies on Fmovies
