The Haunted Mansion came out only a few months after Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and while the latter went on to launch a franchise, the former did not, though both sit comfortably on Disney+ together. Now, I have a confession to make: while I love movies and theme parks, and The Haunted Mansion (in both its Disneyland and Walt Disney World iterations) is one of my all-time favorite theme park rides, up until very recently I never watched The Haunted Mansion movie. I’d heard it was bad, and as I didn’t want to watch a bad movie based on a beloved ride, I just skipped it up. But last week I rectified that situation, and I discovered something fairly surprising, which is that The Haunted Mansion is actually good.
I’m not saying it’s an overlooked masterpiece, but on Rotten Tomatoes the film has a 14% Fresh rating, and that only goes up to 30% for the audience score – and that’s extreme. The movie is fine, and some aspects of it are even good. If I was writing the review here on CinemaBlend for the movie right now I’d give it a solid 3.5 stars.
