"Haunted Mansion": Jared Leto and 999 ghosts in a comedic horror that deceives the viewer's expectations
Miscellaneous / / July 27, 2023
A remake of the failed film with Eddie Murphy has been released.
The Haunted Mansion is a classic attraction from Disneyland. In 2003, Disney tried to bring the children's horror story to the big screen. Then the lead role was called Eddie Murphy. But even he did not save the project. After 20 years, Disney wants to show its attraction to the whole world again.
The film was written by Kathy Dippold (2016's Ghostbusters, Parks and Recreation). Directed by Justin Simien ("Dear White People", "My Hair Wants to Kill").
Starring Lakeith Stanfield ("Atlanta"), Tiffany Haddish ("The Unbearable Weight of Great Talent"), Owen Wilson ("Rushmore Academy”), Rosario Dawson (“Seven Lives”), Danny DeVito (“Twins”). Jared Leto also appears in the film.
Gabby, a single mother, buys a house with her son. On the first day, they discover ghosts in it. To get rid of them, Gabby calls the priest of Kent for help. Kent, unable to drive away the ghosts with the help of rituals, gathers a whole team: it includes the scientist Ben, the medium Harriet and the historian Bruce. Together they try to figure out who's in control
haunted and what happened in this house many years ago.Mix of genres
A remake of a film based on an attraction sounds like a hint that there will be problems with originality. And so it happened. But the film turned out not only secondary, but also too heterogeneous. As if someone was just experimenting with tone, mood, genre canons, but never found a balance.
"Haunted Mansion" is built on the principles horror, almost all dialogues are comedic, but once every 15-20 minutes there is a dramatic monologue. In the first 40-50 minutes, all this mess looks balanced, but gradually the film falls apart. Sometimes adjacent scenes simply have nothing in common: there was just a joke about ghosts, but after a couple of seconds someone is crying, remembering the past. Given that the comedy is banal and the drama is superficial, there is no emotional attraction. It is rather a nervous change of moods that cannot be penetrated.
Weak script
Most of the Mansion scenes look drawn out. Either the intrigue is once again unsuccessfully pumped up, or the characters add lines to the jokes already told, or the scriptwriters simply remind what happened before. The latter is especially embarrassing - the concentration on the details already shown takes a lot of screen time.
Throughout the film, there are constantly moments that are difficult to understand and explain. For example, Ben created a ghost camera, but he doesn't believe in ghosts. Medium, who was locked in a ball, does not even ask her to be released - in fact, she is waiting for a more spectacular moment for this. And when the priest Kent reveals his secret, it becomes unclear how he got into this situation at all.
Several times during the film, events occur that cast doubt on everything that happened before. The script does not move the viewer forward along the path - rather, it automatically destroys what was in the previous scene.
Desperate work of actors
The problem of the script is not only in the inconsistency of events and inexplicable errors, but also in the characters. But the actors managed to at least slightly correct the overall impression.
Another good role by Lakeith Stanfield - with the remark that as a comedic actor he is much stronger than a dramatic one, therefore, even within the same film, he can be convincing in different ways.
Owen Wilson from a completely dead material gives a few absurd scenes - simply because Wilson can't play badly.
Rosario Dawson tries to take her character beyond "I'm a single mother," but she has so few lines that it doesn't work. It seems that even the character of Danny DeVito, who has almost no influence on the plot, is getting more screen time. time, although he exhausts all his comedic potential in his very first scene - again because of script.
But there are no sadder people than those who go to the movie for the sake of Jared Leto. By the middle of the picture, you forget that he is in it, and then you suddenly realize that it is impossible to recognize him under the make-up. Anyone could play the role of the main villain.
The new Haunted Mansion is definitely better than the old one with Eddie Murphy. However, making a film worse is quite difficult. However, the remake lacks comedy, lacks drama, lacks horror – or maybe just lacks an idea that would cut off everything superfluous. A frankly weak script is sometimes masked by the actors, but their efforts are not enough to begin to empathize with at least one of the characters. Well, Jared Leto, as it turned out, is just part of the marketing. However, he would not have saved this sad sight.
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