MadderAdder
Well-Known Member
I love the 2003 one because it made my mom and I laugh so much. I enjoy it more, nostalgia be damned.
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HM plot holes...
- Thread starter Dr Albert Falls
- Start date
MichRX7
Well-Known Member
Saw the movie last night. My wife and I completely enjoyed ourselves and didn't take it serious at all since it is a fantasy comedy movie based on a ride with fake ghosts that is based on a made up story that seems to change over time (which is fine) that was originally not supposed to be a ride at all, but a walk-through. 
erasure fan1
Well-Known Member
I watched it the other night and I can see why it did so poorly. It nailed the call backs to the ride, I generally liked the characters, but as a whole it just didn't land for me. I wasn't expecting a super deep story, but this just seemed all over the place. I'm not sure they really knew what they wanted this movie to be. I will say that my original thoughts on the release date stand. If this was coming out for the Halloween season it would have done much better. I'm not saying it does gangbusters, but I bet it would have had a significant jump.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
The best scene in either the 2003 or 2023 movie is the opening credits for the original.
Played totally straight as a period piece with no jokes and great music it shows what a HM movie could be.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
An absence of jokes would be going against the spirit of the ride.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
The movie was 2 hours, but many scenes and ideas felt rushed with little room to breath or have their impact sink in.
Even if you didn't know about the reshoots, something felt off while watching it. As if moments were cut down or had their order changed.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
Too many of them goes against the spirit of the ride, too. There has to be balance, which I don't think either Mansion film had.
The ride isn't laugh-a-minute from the moment you cross the threshold (misguided Interactive Queue aside), and in fact spends much of its time building the foreboding atmosphere with only wry hints at humor before it finally cracks open late in the game. And even then it's mostly pretty sardonic. The way both movies try to stuff themselves with Jokes with a capital J misses that the humor in the ride is itself the punchline of a larger joke - you're meant to think you should be scared, only to find out it's all in good fun. The living aren't in on it. Which could actually be a really wonderful way to set up a Haunted House film, but alas.
Pirates 1 basically nailed it right out of the gate. The movie isn't a comedy, but it's definitely funny, and it has some bite to it - a period piece with supernatural elements that expands the world of the ride in a cinematic way, but somehow manages to neither grovel at its feet nor contradict it directly. Employs the best tropes of the genre and subverts the others. It's smart, sweeping, and fun as hell. That's how you adapt a ride concept for film. Too bad they couldn't fully keep up that momentum in the sequels.
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Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
Since we're talking about the new one...
Wifey and I watched it this weekend. If The Haunted Mansion hadn't been my favorite ride since I was 4, I probably wouldn't have cared for this film, but all the easter eggs hit my nostalgia sweet spot. I found that the male lead and the little boy had a satisfying character arc, but overall, the picture was too muddled.
Interesting that they made the Hatbox Ghost the main villain, though. I would have thought it was going to be the Bride.
Wifey and I watched it this weekend. If The Haunted Mansion hadn't been my favorite ride since I was 4, I probably wouldn't have cared for this film, but all the easter eggs hit my nostalgia sweet spot. I found that the male lead and the little boy had a satisfying character arc, but overall, the picture was too muddled.
Interesting that they made the Hatbox Ghost the main villain, though. I would have thought it was going to be the Bride.