Review of Haunted Mansion, directed by Justin Simien

I knew as soon as I saw a trailer originally that I never wanted to see Haunted Mansion. It didn’t look good, and I had very low expectations when it came to what kind of movie it was going to be despite Lakeith Stanfield being in it. He usually has very good movies, but this is a new low for him.

Anyways, my sister had gotten an AMC A List subscription to join me in my movie adventures and pitched to me seeing this movie, and for some reason I said yes despite having no interest in it at all. And that led us to our local AMC on a Sunday night right next to two of the most annoying people I’ve been next to in a movie theater.

The girl next to me was on her phone the entire time, and her and her friend were chatting periodically throughout the movie. I know it’s partially my fault when I don’t speak up and tell them to shut up or turn off the phone, but I’ve never seen someone watch TikToks with the volume on when in a crowded movie theater.

No one else told them to be quiet either, and when the movie ended, they dumped all of their trash on the ground and then left it there. I was horrified, but not surprised from my recent experiences with live theater.

Anyways, let’s get on with the review here.

A grieving ex-physicist is roped into a haunted mansion that needs a major exorcism.

I see no point in recalling the entire plot of Haunted Mansion in detail, as it’s an extremely straightforward movie. Lakeith Stanfield plays a struggling ex-physicist whose girlfriend died, so he took over her ghost tours despite being adamant that ghosts do not exist.

He’s also very depressed, as we later find out, but when a fake priest tells him a woman will pay him $2,000 to see if there are ghosts in her mansion, he does it. He ends up trapped in the mansion with the woman and their son, more people get roped into their operation, then it becomes an epic battle against the one evil ghost in the mansion that’s super powerful for literally no explained reason.

Let’s get into why this movie needs some help via a classic bullet point form.

Questionable acting. Like I know Lakeith Stanfield’s character is depressed and it becomes a plot point later on in the movie, but why does it feel like through his delivery most of the movie that he’s just here for a big Disney paycheck? Even when his character does experience some growth and learns to move on, he still kind of just seems like he’s dead inside.
The plot is also questionable with big gaps. There are some very rushed moments in the movie that fill in important research or critical moments just for the sake of filling it in. For example, they get a sketch of the evil ghost guy and then it becomes a weird bridge in which the Professor explains in less than three minutes this guy’s entire story. Like what? What just happened here?
The characters are cliche. Everyone is a archetype and they don’t really progress out of it.
The story is cliche. Yes, I said it. It’s cliche and lacks nuance.
The emotional beats are cliche. I know I complained about the girls next to me in my opening paragraph, but when Lakeith starts crying over his dead girlfriend, the one right next to me busted out laughing and could not stop. Insensitive in the real world when you also add in the insult she said, which I shall not repeat, but she had kind of a point here. A lot of the sad moments, like the kid being bullied and his dead dad, and Lakeith’s dead girlfriend, felt like they just kind of existed for them to be sad.
Our villain sucks. He has a super evil backstory, sure, but how exactly he becomes this all powerful ghost truly is a massive question that hangs over the film. Like I understand that he seriously gets into people’s heads and screws them up to the point of murder/suicide, but come on—it’s hard to take him seriously at some points.

And that, my friends, is all I have to say about this one. Not worth wasting my typing energy!

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