"The Haunted Mansion is more likely to earn Zs than pocket change. Eddie Murphy has called, "Nap Time!" with a counterfeit grin so wide it's liable to put you in a lifelong coma…"
Hell Mission Statement #40325: The Haunted Mansion
I give up, Hollywood. Game over. You win. I can't keep up with your fraudulent ways. I think you misunderstood Pat Benatar's "Hit Me with Your Best Shot." It wasn't supposed to hurt. Not like this. Every week I visit your expulsion pools hoping to lap up clean, filtered, tasty liquid with my dried-out tongue. The juice is, by all means, supposed to replenish my spirit and love for film as an art form. Sadly, you keep sh*tting in that community water dish, and now I've contracted cholera. Why must you keep doing this? Aren't there any fresh ideas left? Where are our new creative geniuses? Please, next time, take a chance on them. This was an easy out, and if you make any money from it, shame on you. An eight-minute amusement park ride can be turned into a great film. Pirates of the Caribbean proved that. But it surely must have been a fluke. The Haunted Mansion is on par with the Country Bears. It's not a bad film. It's not a good film. It's nothing at all, really. Just a waist of time run through at a stoner's gait.
As it came to a close, I had to roll over and shut my eyes. I missed the thrilling climax, only because the backs of my eyelids were providing the better show. Really, it's ridiculous. If you have nothing to fuel ninety minutes of screen time with, why even start the fire in the first place? There's nothing here. The movie's as dead as the ghosts that inhabit it.
We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Cocytus. That's okay, Hollywood is giving us very little to be thankful for this year. Sure, the adults are being tossed one of the best movies of 2003 with Bad Santa, but the after-dinner family film going excursion enjoyed by many folks on Turkey Thursday is looking mighty bleak. You can't take the kids to see Billy Bob Thorton's drunken portrayal of Saint Nick. It would warp their tiny little minds and make them cry. Still, it's a healthier endeavor than what's being thrown at "general" audiences. And it actually has a heartfelt message of hope. The Cat in the Hat is psychologically damaging and kills brain cells faster than a big fatty. Then, we have this, The Haunted Mansion. Its only stunning attribute is that it greatly heightens the affects of all that tryptophan consumed earlier in the day. Walt Disney's latest theme park adaptation is lacking in nutritional value. "What's the matter, Walt? Are you stuck in Stoop-Land?"
It made me sleepy. That's all it did.
"I've seen scary spooks crawl out of your mom's dusty vagina…"
Jimmy Fetus, that's very inappropriate. Please, be quiet…
"No, you're the one that drug me to this gay ass movie. I didn't think it could be any gayer than the Cat in the Hat, but ol' Ed sure proved me wrong. Family outing? More like a family massacre. That's the last time I spend pretend holiday night out with you and Phoenix, man. Next time, I get to pick the movie."
But there was nothing else to pick. You weren't old enough to get into Bad Santa.
"Yup, at only three weeks old, I'm constantly getting screwed. Hollywood must hate three week olds."
Yes, they must. Eddie sucks the toes of one cross-dressing hooker, breaking his signed contract with Satan (It's hanging in Planet Hell, a theme restaurant devoted to the rise and fall of most famous people), and its forever downhill with his tumultuous career. The man does try to resurrect the spirit of his earlier work with a couple of cheeky one-liners, none of which sound rehearsed. His cloying ramble is dated and artificial at this point. He spends the duration of this picture grinning like Sambo, praying to God he doesn't turn into butter. The man used to be so awesome. Hours after watching The Haunted Mansion, I caught an old episode of Saturday Night Live with him and Piscopo. I'd forgotten how…Truly funny the man could be. What happened? Why? It's as if some soul sucking force worked its magic on him, stealing the one thing that made him special. He's just a husk; a shell of the man he used to be. He's a walking automaton. Someone, quick, get a Ouija board and retrieve his soul from the bowels of the Malbolge. He needs to pull a Robin Williams and find something like One Hour Photo or Insomniac to star in. It's his only hope of recovering what little career he has left.
Hell, if they could have found more talented screenwriters, this might have even worked. But it's the story that drags Haunted Mansion to the depth of unwatchablity. The written scenario has nothing to do with Disneyland's most famed attraction. And at this time of year, the magic elves at Disneyland having revamped and redecorated the inside of their spook house, it already has a film to call its own. You might know it by the name of Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas. It was cool to go back to the Pirates' ride after seeing Johnny Depp tear up the high seas, but right now, during the time of this new film's initial release date, the Mansion doesn't even look like its usual self. It's retrofitted with Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia. That may be a good thing. You might actually want to go back and take a look at it knowing Jack Skellington is running the place. Otherwise, you'd be wishing they tore it down and gutted it just like Country Bear Hall after seeing the movie based upon its theme park residue. Yes. The Haunted Mansion is that bad.
Writer David Berenbaum has basically abandoned any cool aspects found inside the possessed house, instead going with his own reworked, warmed-over story. The idea whored here has been done a thousand times, in a thousand different mediums. The Count of Gracey Manor has summoned Jim Evers' wife, Sara, to the property. Why? Because she looks, amazingly, just like his long lost love. We know this because the painting in the attic resembles her visage with an unmitigated accuracy. It's a carbon copy faxed from beyond the grave. An old staple of the spook house set, I never bought into this idealism even as a kid. A simple premise, it's the back-story used here, once again for the umpteenth time, to fuel the origins of an attraction that sits as one of Walt's most popular masterstrokes, forever ruining it in the process.
Not much happens within the perimeters of this stogy cage. While the Count seduces Evers' beautiful wife, Jim and his two children stumble around the mansion for what seems like a very long amount of time, running into absolutely nothing interesting at all. The kids happen upon a glowing green ball that looks like swamp gas, and it leads them to a locked treasure chest. Inside the chest is a note from Terrance Stamp, explaining how the estate and its adjoining graveyard are cursed. Jim (played by Ed, cloaked in American cheese) takes the memo to the count, and then the count's lost love possesses Evers' wife. The two requited lovers are reunited, and the curse is broken. End of story. My question is; why couldn't the ball of swamp gas, which is actually the countess' spirit, just go to the count and lead him to the scribbled letter in the chest? That would have been a lot quicker, and we wouldn't have had to suffer through such a pointless exercise in how to mug theater patrons.
The film ditches any interesting aspects associated with the actual ride. We never learn why all these dead people are still hanging around the place. It would have been a lot more fascinating had they all died from a Jim Jones-induced Kool-Aid bash, but that's not exactly "Disneyesque." We never see the banquet hall and its zombie revelers partying. They even failed to include the best part of this slowed-down rollercoaster, where millions of transparent phantoms are spitting out of the graveyard at one thousand miles per hour. Basically, the movie has nothing to do with the theme park attraction. It's lost its former's charm and is banking on name recognition alone.
From the ads, I thought this would be about Eddie exploring the house on his own terms and running into all kinds of obstacles along the way. I expected more interaction with the various spooks that occupy this respected Disneyland Estate. But the focus isn't really about the walls inside Gracie Manor as it is about trying to maintain a simplistic A to B plotline. That's where it fails. Miserably. Not only that, it spends way too much time trying to set-up its main characters. The whole beginning of the film is wasted on unnecessary exposition.
A good narrative would be able to establish Eddie's workaholic realtor persona in just a couple of minutes. This film is so devoid of original ideas and any type of inspiration, it fills up empty space with meaningless sequences about Eddie buying and selling houses for no other apparent reason than to let us now he's got a pretty boring life. This final cut almost feels like a work in progress. Its pace is way off the mark. An early scene where Ed goes to a Tiki Bar and interacts with a couple whose house he is selling should be excised from the picture. It's unnecessary and does nothing to further the character or enhance the story. And there's this weird cut-away to the face of a Tiki idol held within its fragile framework. The camera lingers on its black features for a rather long moment; the image is sewn in without a bit of reason or rhythm. It couldn't be foreshadowing. Tiki Gods and Louisiana Ghosts have nothing in common. It almost looks like they were missing a shot, and this was the only cutaway they could use. Something about it just doesn't feel right.
Despite its problems with storytelling, what really does the picture in is its overall lack of energy. There are no surprises or laughs of any kind to be found. The audience I saw it with remained still and quiet throughout the duration of its running time. Only a couple of chuckles could be heard near the end. And they seemed like they were being given out of respect more than anything else. The film only comes alive one time, and that's when Eddie and his kids have to retrieve a key from a graveyard. They are unmercifully attacked by the living dead. Sadly, just when you think something of interest is about to happen, Eddie and his daughter defeat the zombies with very little zeal. And the madness is over quickly. Then it's back to the tedium.
I guess I just expected more. This is way below the standards set by other Haunted Mansion movies as of late, like House on Haunted Hill, The Haunted, and even Casper. Hell, it opens with the exact same establishing shot as Casper, where a kid goes to survey the house through its massive wrought iron gate, and a ghost comes shooting out of the seond story window and through his chest, scaring the bejeezus out of him and, supposedly, the audience. How lame is that? They couldn't even come up with an original opening teaser. You can't possibly expect me to respect this blah fest of inactivity? It's not even cleaver with its set-up and pay-off. The little boy's afraid of spiders? This is a haunted house movie? F*ck, even a blind man could see that the kid's going to have to battle a bunch of them later on…
Ah, what else can I say? It's not worth your time. Gather the kids around the couch and watch Hillbillys in a Haunted House. You'll enjoy it more. And it will be cheaper. (Plus it stars Ferlin Husky, a far superior talent to the man once known as Eddie Murphy.)
I'm telling you, if you've eaten the slightest amount of turkey, you're going to fall asleep before Ed and his family even reaches Gracie Manor. And I believe that's intentional. Otherwise, maybe the film would have applied itself a little bit more.
Jesus Christ. All we're asking for is something entertaining to watch. Hollywood can't even do that. She's such a whore.
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