Grim, Grinnin’ Ghosts…

Apparently at a creative loss, Disney decided to turn some of its theme park attractions into movies. The three chosen were: The Country Bear Jamboree, Pirates and the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. This entry focuses on the promise that was the Haunted Mansion and the completely missed opportunity the film represents.

Beware of hitch-hiking ghosts and SPOILERS!


The Movie
The Haunted Mansion tells the story of the Jim and Sara Evers (Eddie Murphy and Marsha Thomason, respectively), married real estate agents with two children. As the movie starts, they worry that their work is taking too much time away from each other and their children. So, Jim decides they are going to pack up children Megan and Michael (Aree Davis and Marc John Jeffries, respectively) and go to the lake. However, Sara is asked to appraise a mansion and Jim’s greedy, greedy ways causes him to make a detour on the way to the lake. Guess who isn’t happy.

The house is a large Louisiana-inspired mansion. It looks similar to how it looks at the Disney parks, just set in a creepy bayou. The movie takes on a darker lighting style that will last throughout the film.
The butler, Ramsley (Terrence Stamp), shows the family in, though he isn’t pleased to see Sara has a family. Neither is his master, Master Gracey (Nathaniel Parker). As a storm has stranded the family, they settle down for the wildest night of their lives. They soon get acquainted with the servants, who aren’t entirely alive. The children befriend married ghosts Emma and Ezra (Dina Waters and Wallace Shawn, respectively), who serve as Co-Captain Backstory. They tell the story of how Master Gracey was in love with a young woman named Elizabeth. However, she was found dead shortly after their engagement. It is believed to be a suicide and Master Gracey falls into a deep depression. And Sara looks like Elizabeth!

This raises Jim’s jealousy meter, especially as Master Gracey is spending a lot of time with Sara. However, Jim is sent on a mission to rescue his wife. He meets Madame Leota (Jennifer Tilly), a medium/psychic head floating in a crystal ball. She tells Jim to fetch a key that will unlock the secrets of the manor. Jim and his children work together to get the key from some mummies and giant spiders. Jim uses the key to discover the mansion’s dark secret: The butler did it. Yes, gentle readers, not only was it a dark and stormy night, but the butler did it! He killed Elizabeth and apparently made a deal with the devil…or something…which is why everyone in the house remains as a ghost. Sara, as Elizabeth’s doppelganger, needs to marry Master Gracey and die to end the curse.

Jim, naturally, cannot let this happen and relies on everything to save his wife and reveal Ramsley’s treachery.

The Ride
The ride begins as one enters the house and passes by a portrait that ages rapidly as you watch, an homage to the Portrait of Dorian Gray. Disney lore says it’s of the Ghost Host, dubbed Master Gracey by many fans after a tombstone in the graveyard that lines the queue. I personally call it Dick Clark’s picture because seriously, that man looks good for his age. And for having a stroke. Everyone is ushered into the “Stretching Room,” where the Ghost Host welcomes you. The room gets its name because as you stand there, the room begins to stretch to give the innocent paintings adorning the walls a macabre twist. Does the room stretch up or do you go down? Well, that depends on where you are. If you want the answer, it’ll be on the bottom of this entry.

After a blood-curdling introduction, you are loaded into “Doom Buggies” to tour the house. After passing through a library, one comes to the room of Madame Leota. The spirits start to “appear” after that, having a party in the ballroom and the graveyard. It is in the graveyard that the singing busts sing the ride’s theme song, “Grim, Grinnin’ Ghosts.” After picking up a hitchhiking ghost, the ride ends.

References
The two most obvious references to the ride are Master Gracey and Madame Leota. The singing busts also end up in the graveyard scene, though they are more of a barbershop quintet (I believe performed by Disney’s own Dapper Dons) rather than the eerie quintet in the ride. It doesn’t help if you’ve been on the ride as the main singer is Thurl Ravenscroft—Tony the Tiger, the singing voice of the Grinch—and his deep voice just amps up the spookiness this quintet can’t achieve.

Every Disney fanatic can tell you how many happy haunts call the mansion their home—999. And it would seem that they threw nearly the other 994 ghosts into the graveyard scene of this movie. And if you’ve ever been on the ride, spot your favorite ghost in this scene—including the horseless carriage that sits in front of the Haunted Mansion at Disney World!

There is a reference to the bride in the attic and to the person trying to escape his coffin as well.

Analysis
The Haunted Mansion had great potential. It really did. It had potential as a straight horror film. It had potential as a comedic send-up of the horror film. It had potential as a straight comedy. If the filmmakers had chosen one genre, it would’ve been great. However, the Haunted Mansion flickers between horror and comedy. It doesn’t even make it to campy, which would at least save it somewhat.

The story is blasé and not one that suits the ride that inspired it. It is a Georgian style mansion home to 999 happy haunts. Rather than utilizing them, they were thrown into a jumble of a graveyard scene and reduced to cameos. If Jim and his family had been stranded in the house with the 999 happy haunts and had the Master Gracey—Elizabeth—The Butler Did It plot been dropped, perhaps the movie would have had a chance.

Eddie Murphy hams it the entire movie. Thomason, Davis and Jeffries fare better, though the role of Sara was one of the best written in the film. Stamp tries his best to add the creepy factor to the movie, as he seems to be the one acting in a straight horror movie. Shawn and Waters have great comedic chemistry as the married ghosts and provide the movie with some of its best bits of humor.

Final Thoughts
Skip this movie. Unless you have a Bad Movie Night or like to riff while watching such movies. The Haunted Mansion was shut down for refurbishment a few years ago and a popular rumor was that they would add Eddie Murphy to the ride. Fortunately, those rumors were proven untrue. It would seem Disney would also like to forget this movie ever existed as well.

However, they are trying again. Guillermo del Toro has signed on to direct another movie version of "The Haunted Mansion.” From what has been released, del Toro is making a straight horror film. The recent refurbishment embellished the story of the bride in the attic. As your doom buggy glides through the attic, her seven husbands appear before their heads disappear. As you reach the attic’s exit, the bride stands there with an axe in her hand. This will be the basis of the new movie according to reports.

Quote of the Movie
“The butler did it? You got to be kidding me!” Jim Evers.

How true.




Answers
Walt Disney World: The room stretches up.

Disneyland: The floor goes down as the loading area had to be built underground.