Movie Review – The Haunted Mansion (2003)

Nearly everybody who has visited the Disney theme parks has enjoyed the classic ghost house ride, the Haunted Mansion.

The Haunted Mansion has been an instant hit with the park guests since the ride first opened in Disneyland back in 1969.  The later versions at Walt Disney World, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland have all been crowd favorites as well.

It’s the Disneyland version of the ride that was the first one built and opened, and that’s also where the 2003 film The Haunted Mansion gets its reference material.

Set inside of an old and spooky mansion in the Louisiana bayou, The Haunted Mansion tells a story of a hotshot real estate agent who receives a call to visit the mansion and help sell it.  After arriving at the mansion, the Realtor and his family quickly realize that not everything is as it seems, and ghosts are very much real.

Directed by Rob Minkoff, The Haunted Mansion stars Eddie Murphy in the starring role of real estate agent Jim Evers.  Supporting him are Marsha Thomason as Sara Evers, Terence Stamp as Ramsley, Nathaniel Parker as Master Gracey, and Jennifer Tilly as Madame Leota.

The Haunted Mansion begins with workaholic New Orleans real estate agent Jim Evers (Eddie Murphy) closing the deal on another house.  He’s been on a role and has a hot streak selling homes this month.  Unfortunately, his strong work mentality has taken its strain on his family, and he misses a wedding anniversary between him and his wife, Sara (Marsha Thomason).

To make up for his behavior, Jim promises to take his wife and their two kids, Megan (Aree Davis) and Michael (Marc John Jefferies), on a weekend outing to a lake outside of town.  Just before leaving, Sara receives a strange phone call requesting her to visit an old home called Gracey Manor, and to help place the home on the market.  Sara is also a real estate agent.  Sensing another opportunity to make some money, Jim convinces his wife to stop by Gracey Manor on the way to the lake.  It’ll just take about twenty minutes top to see the home and start the process of selling it.

As the family quickly discovers, Gracey Manor is an old, Antebellum-style mansion dating back to the 1800s.  It’s also deep in the swamp and the large home looks unkept, as if nobody has lived there in quite some time.  The mansion also happens to have its own family cemetery right outside the house.

Suddenly it starts raining hard and the Evers family runs to the front door.  The door mysteriously opens, and moments later they’re greeted by Ramsley (Terence Stamp), the mansion’s butler.  Ramsley leads them further into the mansion where they meet Master Edward Gracey (Nathaniel Parker).  Master Gracey seems to be more interested in meeting with Sara rather than her husband, Jim.

As they’re sitting with Master Gracey, Ramsley looks out the window and announces that the storm has caused the river to swell, making the road back to town temporarily impassible.  Whether the family wanted to or not, they’re now stuck spending the night in Gracey Manor.  Ramsley takes them upstairs and shows them their rooms.  As soon as they’re alone, Jim and Sara get into an argument about Jim’s obsession with his work and how he’s been ignoring his family.  She also implies that it’s Jim’s fault that they’re stuck at Gracey Manor instead of relaxing by the lake.

Moments later Ramsley returns and informs Jim that Master Gracey would like to have a word with him in the library.  Jim goes with Ramsley to the library, and then he starts poking around the room when waiting for Master Gracey.  Jim discovers a secret passage and enters the chamber, but he’s stuck in there when the door closes behind him.

Upstairs in their bedroom, Megan and Michael are visited by a ghostly orb.  It doesn’t harm them.  Instead, the orb wants the kids to follow it to another part of the mansion.  They do so an ultimately end up in the mansion’s attic where they find the portrait of a woman who looks an awfully lot like their mother, Sara.

Meanwhile, Sara begins exploring the mansion and looking for her husband.  She quickly finds a maid, Emma (Dina Waters), but the maid runs off and disappears.  Sara runs into Ramsley and he points her towards the library.  Thinking that she’s going to find her husband, Sara is surprised when she instead runs into Master Gracey.

Master Gracey sees something special in Sara.  When she asks him why he wants to sell his house, Master Gracey tells her that the house has a lot of memories, some of them painful.  He then goes on to tell Sara about the old days of the house when it was filled with not only people but the concept and promise of hope as well.  It’s the story of Elizabeth though that haunts the walls.

Gracey explains that his ancestor’s lover Elizabeth Henshaw (Marsha Thomason) committed suicide by poisoning herself one evening during a masquerade party.  Not knowing why she took her life, his ancestor decided to also commit suicide and he hanged himself.

Meanwhile, Jim Evers finds his way out of the secret passage and uses a candelabra to explore the Portrait Corridor.  As he passes each painting mysteriously changes into a different image.  At the end of the hallway are two marble busts that turn and look at him.  Around the corner is a “breathing” door that leads to yet another room.

Up in the attic, Megan and Michael meet Ezra (Wallace Shawn), another one of the workers in the mansion.  He’s upset that the kids are up there, and he tells them to leave.  They instead ask about the woman in the portrait to which Emma responds is a woman named Elizabeth.  Emma also mentions something about the kids being involved in whatever is happening in the mansion.

When Ramsley approaches them in the attic, Ezra and Emma have the kids hide from him.  Apparently he’s looking for the children.  He’s also upset that not only did Sara bring her kids, but she also brought along her husband as well.  She was specifically told to visit the mansion by herself.

Jim Evers stumbles into a Seance Room and meets Madame Leota (Jennifer Tilly), a mystical woman who only exists as a head floating in a glass ball.  Madame Leota warns Jim that there is “. . . great evil in this house.”  Something that is seeking to destroy him.  Leota commands the dark spirits to levitate them in the room, to which the spirits do.  Jim is ultimately chased out of the room by the spirits and he finds Megan and Michael as well as Emma and Ezra who reveal themselves to be ghosts.  Jim doesn’t want to listen to them until he hears that his wife is in trouble.  She’s apparently trapped in the mansion because of the curse.

At the urging of Emma and Ezra, Jim takes his kids and returns to Madame Leota to learn how he can break the curse and save his wife.  Leota sends Jim on a mission to find a key down in the mausoleum.  To quickly get to the mausoleum, Ezra has everybody ride with him on his horse-drawn hearse.  Of course, the horse is a ghost just like everybody else.  They race through the graveyard where all of the ghosts are active and having a merry time, including three hitchhiking ghosts.  There are even four singing busts singing “Grim Grinning Ghosts.”

Jim and his kids eventually find the mausoleum.  He has them stand guard outside while he heads down to look for the key, but Megan goes with him anyway.  They find the tomb with a skeleton holding the key, but touching the key brings the skeleton back to life along with other spirits locked in the mausoleum.  Jim and Megan race back to the door and Michael conquers his fear of spiders and is able to unlock it from the outside, allowing his father and sister to escape from the evil spirits.

Back in the Seance Room, Madame Leota sends Jim looking for a trunk after he shows her the key.  They head into the attic and find the trunk.  The key unlocks the trunk, and inside of if Jim finds an old letter from Elizabeth.  When he reads the letter out loud, it sounds like Elizabeth was looking forward to marrying her fiancé rather than committing suicide with poison.

Suddenly Ramsley joins everybody in the attic and expresses his displeasure with Jim locating Elizabeth’s letter.  He reveals that it was him who really killed Elizabeth, making her death look like a suicide.  Ramsley was concerned that Master Gracey was taking the wrong path with marrying Elizabeth, and doing so would abandon his home and his heritage.

Somehow the murder of Elizabeth and the suicide of Master Gracey created a curse on Gracey Manor, a curse that prevents the spirits from leaving and moving on in the afterlife.  If Master Gracey can be reunited with the spirit of Elizabeth then the curse can be broken.

Ramsley informs Jim that Sara is downstairs preparing for her “wedding” with Master Gracey.  He hints that she might be killed so that her ghost can interact with Master Gracey and the curse be lifted.  When Megan and Michael get angry, Ramsley uses his powers to lock them in the trunk.  He then tosses Jim through a window and out of the mansion.

Downstairs in the mansion, Master Gracey is convinced that Sara is the reincarnated version of his beloved Elizabeth.  The only problem for Master Gracey is that Sara doesn’t remember anything from her past life.  She also doesn’t love or want to marry him.  Ramsley blackmails Sara into marrying Master Gracey with the threat of harming her children.

Outside of the mansion, Jim grows depressed when he cannot break into the house to save his wife and children.  Madame Leota is also out there and she talks some sense into him.  This inspires him to use his BMW car as a battering ram to smash his way into Gracey Manor.  This works and he rushes inside and discovers his children locked in a trunk.  To get to them he has to first make his way past a dozen medieval statues that suddenly come to life.  Jim is able to defeat the statues and rescue his children.

While Jim is rescuing his kids, Sara is going through with the wedding ceremony to Master Gracey.  Just as Sara is about to drink a cup of poison, Jim rushes into the room and stops the ceremony.  When Gracey confronts Jim, Jim tells him the truth that it was Ramsley who really killed Elizabeth and staged it to look like a suicide.  He then gives Gracey the old note from Elizabeth as proof of her love to him.

When Ramsley is confronted with this evidence he admits that it’s true.  He then summons demons to kill everybody in the room.  The fireplace then expands and open, showing an opening to Hell.  A fire monster rises from the fireplace and grabs Ramsley.  As Ramsley is being hauled away he grabs Jim, and the two of them are hanging on the edge of the fireplace and dangling over the opening to Hell.

Ramsley slips free and falls into Hell while Master Gracey helps pull Jim back into the house.  After he does so the fireplace changes shape back to its original form.

Suddenly the children notice that Sara has collapsed to the floor.  Apparently some of the poison in the cup touched her lips and that was enough.  Just as it’s looking to be the end of Sara, from out of nowhere comes the ghostly orb that Megan and Michael encountered earlier.  The orb floats down to Sara’s body and possesses it, revealing herself to be Elizabeth.

Elizabeth rises and says that the truth had to be known in order for her to be released.  She and Master Gracey kiss.  Right after that the spirit of Elizabeth leaves Sara’s body and she awakens free of poison.  Sara and Jim then rekindle their relationship.

Master Gracey seeks forgiveness from Jim by giving him the deed to Gracey Manor, allowing him to do whatever he wants with the house.  The spirits of Master Gracey and Elizabeth then rise to Heaven.  The same happens to Emma and Ezra along with the spirits that had been trapped in the graveyard by the curse.

The Haunted Mansion ends with Jim and his family driving along the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and heading back home.  Inside of their car is Madame Leota, and strapped to the trunk are the four singing busts.  They’re singing an alternate version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” as the family heads home.

A scene after the credits has Madame Leota telling us to “Hurry back, hurry back.”

FINAL THOUGHTS

So is The Haunted Mansion any good?

Not exactly.

While the mansion itself looks great and just about every memorable scene from the Haunted Mansion ride made it into the film, the movie’s plot could really use some work.

For starters, what’s the deal with the curse that’s preventing the spirits and ghosts from advancing to the next phase of the afterlife?  We know that a curse is stopping them from advancing, and that curse is related to the murder of Elizabeth and Master Gracey’s suicide, but that’s it.  Why would that trigger or create a curse?

The problem is that the curse is the baseline of the entire plot in this movie.  It’s why the ghosts are there.  It’s also why Master Gracey and Ramsley somehow see the advertisements for Jim and Sara’s realty company, believe that Sara is the reincarnation of Elizabeth just by seeing her image, and give her a call to get her to visit the mansion, thus sealing her fate.

But the whole curse doesn’t make any sense as we know nothing about it or why it pertains to Gracey Manor.  Nor do we really care about the curse as pretty much every single ghost seems to be having a good time being trapped at the mansion or in its graveyard.  It’s not like they’re struggling or pleading to advance like in Pirates of the Caribbean:  The Curse of the Black Pearl.

There’s a world of difference between curses in those two Disney films based on theme park attractions.  In Pirates the curse works great.  In The Haunted Mansion it’s a waste of time.

Also, why was Elizabeth trapped in the form of an energy orb?  Was that supposed to be part of the curse?

As far as the old letter that was locked in the trunk, a letter that both Ramsley and Madame Leota knew about, why didn’t Ramsley simply destroy the letter years ago?  He could have staged Elizabeth’s death and then easily destroyed all of the evidence.

It really feels like The Haunted Mansion was created into a film just to show off an incredibly popular ride in the Disney theme parks.  While the mansion itself looked great, the plot needs serious work and some of the characters (in particular Master Gracey, Ramsley, Emma, Ezra, and Madame Leota) also need improvement.

Had this film had a decent story and some better characters, then this could have been an outstanding film that pays tribute to one of Disney’s greatest attractions.

But it doesn’t.  The Haunted Mansion clearly misses the mark in almost every way possible.  Despite that, all of the references to the Disney ride still make this film at least somewhat interesting, even for just brief moments of time.

The Haunted Mansion (2003) – movie trailer

It’s obvious that fans of “The Haunted Mansion” ride will be the ones who understand this film the best.  Most of them probably won’t like the story, but at least they’ll understand all of the otherwise crazy references throughout the film.

Jim – “The butler did it? You got to be kidding me.”

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Jim – [speaking to Master Gracey who is about to kill him] “Hey. You wanna kill me, kill me. But listen, when I come on the other side, I’m gonna just be whipping your ass for all eternity.”