Haunted Mansion

Disney’s Haunted Mansion is a fair enough choice for a family night in, experienced from the comfort of your couch, where the flaws are less glaring and the price of admission for Disney+ is cheaper.

No central theme emerges beyond a blandly generalised one about moving on from the past, which is to say that overtly at least, this Haunted Mansion plays it even safer than its 2003 predecessor.

Owen Wilson is a priest who may be a man of the con rather that the cloth. He does manage to exorcise a few jokes out of a demonically unfortunate predicament.

This is a grimly efficient IP cash-in that defuses any potential scares with a hot-pink colour palette and a bunch of oddly specific and distracting product placements.

The movie only gels once, in a sequence featuring Winona Ryder as Pat, a hilariously sour member of the heritage industry. Serenely quirky and coherent, this segment offers a haunting glimpse of what might have been.

Not scary. Not funny. Just depressing.

While there's a modern twist and a less than rosy view of the world in the beginning, there's a happy ending to this tale of a paranormal tour guide while teams up with a psychic, a priest and a historian to help the hapless owner of the titular house.

The rules surrounding everyone’s ultimate survival seem contrived and arbitrary, and the ghosts are central casting stock, from Desiccated Bride to Knights Templar to Miscast Mummy. We don’t know where the ghosts come from so everyone is confused.

Where “Haunted Mansion” fails to generate laughs, it does evoke feelings of terror — mostly the fear that Disney will trot out this IP again in 20 years.

I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, totally, really, really, really, completely, really, really, really, really, really, really, really wanted this one to be good.