Haunted House, Disney Sculptor Rediscovery with Eddie Murphy

The release of the Haunted House reboot starring Rosario Dawson and Owen Wilson is the perfect opportunity to revisit the 2003 Disney series starring Eddie Murphy.

Closer to the new millennium, Walt Disney Pictures decided to try something new in cinema. In parallel with the more experimental and ambitious classics of those years of transition from classical to digital animation (remember Madness of the Emperor, Atlantis or all treasure planet), the Mickey Mouse House has decided to relocate some of most popular attractions their theme parks in feature films live action, as well as investing huge creative and economic resources. Two of them were flagships in this project, and both saw the light of day in 2023, that is, twenty years ago: one turned into one of the most profitable franchises in the history of cinema, the other instead became sculpture.

The first one is Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl Mount Verbinski, the film that cost Johnny Depp collective recognition for his Jack Sparrow and also earned him his first Oscar nomination. Instead there was a second ghost house Rob Minkoff’s ramshackle adaptation of Disney’s most famous and popular attraction featuring Eddie Murphy and directed by adored co-director de The Lion King AND Mermaid. The work we remember today with love and sympathy on the occasion of the release of Justin Simien’s reboot (here’s our review) with Owen Wilson, Rosario Dawson and Danny DeVito.

From New York to New Orleans

Like we said Disney he was quite serious about these transpositions, so he decided to invite some of the most popular directors of the time. Gore Verbinski, for example, was the result of international success Ring and the company needed a director who could combine horror, adventure and commercials into one solid blockbuster. For ghost house instead, the speech was a different one, tied to Disney tradition and conceptual respect for the ride, so the company chose a permanent studio employee like Minkoff to direct. However, the director had just experienced the good success of these two films. Stuart Little, the element that finally convinced the company to entrust him with the reins of the project, written by David Berenbaum. The film was originally supposed to be set in upstate New York to indirectly resemble the atmosphere of Ghostbusters, but then the producers decided to take the original essence of the attraction and move the action to New Orleans, Louisiana, which is located in the same city. . New Orleans area Disney World World Resorts Orlando. Back then, the story was perfectly tailored to appeal: it was about real estate agent Jim Evers, too busy with his job and not very attentive to his family.

However, when his wife is invited to the mysterious Gracie estate, he decides to go with her and the kids, sniffing out the affairs of life, but the choice turns out to be wrong and dangerous, placing his wife at the center of a cursed curse. a century-old love story, complete with an otherworldly conspiracy. Also consider that the house was built practically from scratch in a matter of weeks, mimicking the iconic facade of an Orlando landmark, as well as inserting various references and quotes here and there. So the idea was to do something big, but something didn’t work. Firstly the decision to release the film a few months after The Curse of the Black Pearl, which at the time set a new standard for the quality of visuals and the way a massive blockbuster was made.

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Infected and decanted

Disney’s goal was to bring the fear and fun of the theme park ride to the big screen. However, not just fear, but fear of jumping, from jumping onto a chair, and not from psychological horror. The soul of the project was actually full of genre frivolity, but did not convince as it could and should have. While in the summer Verbinski’s film was already engrossed and an instant cult hit, in the winter, The Haunted Mansion struggled to keep the building blocks of the work together by going in the opposite direction. It wasn’t really scary at all, and the fun was almost centered in a physical, expressive and spotty interpretation of Eddie Murphy, the generic theatrical showman in the title, which, however, had very little to say and no desire to surprise. However, it was very entertaining and direct quotes from the attraction were occasionally quoted, the phrase “there is always my way

“- which is obligatory in Orlando – or the presence of a fortune-teller Madame Leota (which we also find in the 2023 reboot). The special effects of the ghosts were then conceptually designed to make them more and more “dead” depending on the distance from the haunted mansion, but the cinematic rendering pales in comparison to Barbossa’s crew of the damned seen just a few months earlier.

Same studio, more or less similar investments, two great heroes, but opposite results. Then it must be said that the stage presence of the villain Terence Stamp it had its own gothic and funny charm, but basically even that was wasted by a narrative choice too dedicated to unwanted actions and such veiled betrayal. Critics have been plebiscitary in their criticism of Minkoff’s film, but despite being coldly received by the specialist press, the film has managed to enter the collective imagination over the years, being remembered, reviewed, spoken about, and in some cases defended and praised for its relevance. to the Disney attraction and its throbbing comedic side mixed with horror wit. If you see him again today, all the shortcomings that were already more or less obvious then will be highlighted, but it must be said that he has not lost his great individuality at all, on the contrary, he still works very well in those passages where he already worked in time. It is as if time had stopped in 2003, despite twenty years on the calendar, among memories, doubts and certainties that remained intact and ready to haunt the revision of the work.