I’ll be up front about this…I went to Haunted Mansion because my beloved wife wanted to see it. Maybe because she had been to Disneyworld (I haven’t been) and it brought back some rememberberries. Whatever. I try to be a good husband (You’ll have to ask her if I succeed. Hint: it’s a ‘yes’) so off we went. And I think this is going to be a fairly short review because, quite honestly, there is not a lot to talk about here.

The story was as bland and generic as a PG 13 kids scary movie could possibly be. That order would be Goosebumps, then Haunted Masion. Far, far above would be Army of Darkness and so on. If Goosebumps is the most ‘kiddie version’ scary movies can get, then Goosebumps could reach up and tickle the tootsies of Haunted Mansion. In short, it was not scary. Not at all. Not in the slightest. Take your nanna with a severe heart condition, it’s fine.

Haunted mansion…Ya basic

And if the story was this basic, the dialogue did nothing to enhance the experience. I kind of feel like this script was written by scab writers during the LAST writer’s strike back in 2007. That this movie had SO MANY great talents that were given SO LITTLE to work with is staggering to me. The sum of this movie’s parts actually detracts from the whole because we kept waiting for a beloved actor to give us something to enjoy and it never came. In fact, were someone to tell me that the script was written by a soulless AI chatbot, I would not be shocked. Not. One. Bit.

Let’s do a roll-call of superb talent totally wasted in Haunted Mansion. Rosario Dawson. Owen Wilson. Dany DeVito (this one hurt me physically). Tiffany Haddish (well….). Jared Leto. And Jamie Lee Curtis! Girl, you are a horror movie veteran, some would say the First Lady of Horror. No excuse, JLC. Ya got none.

Here comes the BUT

HOWEVER…while the aforementioned talents were phoning it in and collecting a paycheck, there were a couple of exceptions that actually stood out. I thought LaKeith Stanfield turned in the best performance of the lot, including an emotional moment that was far and away best in show. Also worthy of praise is Chase Dillon, who plays Rosario Dawson’s introverted son with as much emotional range as the limited script would allow.

Haunted Mansion continued the current Hollywood trend of shoehorning cameos into their movies. It was nice to see them but the delight that I used to have when a famous face popped up unexpectedly is waning. It was bound to, I suppose. If we can count on Hollywood to do anything at all, it would be to beat a dead horse. Embarassingly and shamefully. We aren’t there yet but it’s coming, make no mistake. And it’s really sad that these little surprises meant to be after dinner mints are actually the most satisfying part of the whole two hours.

Anyway, here they are: Dan Levy ( I went to parties last year dressed as David Rose. My wife was Moira. We go all out for Halloween). Winona Ryder. Hasan Minhaj. Jo Koy. And Marilu Henner, who had slightly less screentime than her Taxi co-star. Slightly.

I wish that I could give you all more of a reason to see Haunted Mansion but unfortunately, this one will strictly be for your pre-adolescent kids. It didn’t even have anything shoved in as a little sumthin’-sumthin’ for parents (have any of you watched Bluey? I can’t lie, I love that kiddie show). I recommend going to a matinee with reclining seats and maybe taking a nice nap. Haunted Mansion gets a meager 2/5.

And this year’s Halloween costumes in our house will be EXCELLENT. Take my word for it.

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