Ghosts Under the Disney Ferris Wheel
“Haunted House” is a cynical, secondary, and deservedly unsuccessful scary-funny film
A movie today can be made of anything. For example – from a game. Without opening a word about long-running franchises like “Transformers”, let’s look at the most successful films of the current year. So far, it’s the animated Super Mario Bros., with $1.4 billion in ticket revenue. Only “Barbie” – a film about Mattel’s iconic doll, viewed through the prism of modern feminism – has a chance to overtake it in the foreseeable future.
Disney knows better than anyone how to squeeze dollars out of IP (intellectual property), transferring it into different media, forms, and commercial packaging. For every Star Wars ticket sold, they sell two laser swords, and for every comic book character – a 4D attraction in their theme parks.
But once a water pitcher, twice a water pitcher… If you are too greedy and cynical, the pattern stops working for you and starts working against you. That’s what’s happening to Disney this year, recording failure after expensive failure. This is also the fate of “Haunted House” – a funny-scary film based conceptually and visually on an amusement park attraction that opened its doors back in 1969 in Anaheim, California. Haunted Mansion is the last entertainment of the brand, developed by Walt Disney himself, and continues to delight fans today in different parts of the world. But they haven’t been able to make a memorable film about her so far. And there have been attempts since 2003 – the first with that name, with the participation of Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Tilly, was an aesthetic disaster (with an acceptable financial return).
The CEO slows down but does not forget: that same year, again on an attraction from the amusement parks, “Disney” released one of the biggest hits in its entire history, “Pirates of the Caribbean” (all five successful attempts). Then why don’t they try again to get a dollar from the ghosts under the Ferris wheel?
Haunted House 2023 is not a sequel, nor a remake, but it is monstrously secondary, marketing, and devoid of any artistic justification for existence. For starters, programming it in the height of summer is a mistake: it probably would have gone over better among the pumpkins and leftover Halloween merchandise. In the shadow of “Barbenheimer,” which continues to triumph at the box office for a third week, director Justin Simien’s film has little chance of recouping its monstrous $150 million budget (for comparison: “Oppenheimer” cost “only” 100.) Money spent cheekiness, given that Haunted House’s few successes are in the realm of comedy rather than horror. The very fact that Disney is trying to do something like horror for younger ages is laughable. The only thing that is nailed down in this movie is the gender and racial diversity quota. The rest feels like a children’s birthday party animation with very expensive sets and costumes.
Twenty years later, Rosario Dawson took on the role of Eddie Murphy. She’s a single mom who moves into an abandoned mansion in Louisiana with her son… and minutes later, they’re running away screaming from the ghosts that pop out of its dark corners. A number of strange types come to her aid. LaKeith Stanfield, a former astrophysicist who tragically lost his girlfriend, has today taken over her tourist tours of paranormal addresses. Owen Wilson is an exorcist priest, Danny de Vito – a wacky historian professor, and Jamie Lee Curtis – a fortuneteller imprisoned in a crystal ball. Another Oscar winner, Jared Leto, is unrecognizable as an evil spirit. The over-qualified cast can’t make up for the mediocre and chaotic script, but at least they’re nice to see.
They all wander around spectacular computer-generated spaces inhabited by ghosts, make small talk, and then hurry to finish the contract work and go home. If supernatural creatures are waiting for them there.
