Haunted Mansion (2023)

Disney's Haunted Mansion is the second film adaptation of a theme park ride, directed by Justin Simien and released into a summer already crowded with more urgent spectacles. It gathers a notably diverse ensemble: LaKeith Stanfield as the grieving astrophysicist, Rosario Dawson as the widowed doctor, Tiffany Haddish as the psychic, Owen Wilson as the fake priest, Danny DeVito as the historian. The casting is deliberate and visible. The film itself has no thesis about it. New Orleans provides atmosphere and a few local touches, but the story never turns that setting into a statement about race or history. The movie wants ghosts, jokes, and a family-friendly haunted house. It gets some of those, though not enough of any.

The social consciousness on display is thin and incidental. Dawson and Haddish are capable women with agency, yet the screenplay offers no feminist argument. Dan Levy appears briefly, but the film contains no LGBTQ themes, relationships, or subtext. There is no climate anxiety, no body positivity, no neurodivergent character, and no revisionist history. The closest thing to class rebellion is Alistair Crump, a wealthy heir shunned by society and eventually assassinated by his abused staff. That is a backstory beat, not a manifesto. The film is too busy arranging jump scares and product placements to build an ideological case.

Its emotional arc concerns grief and the difficulty of letting go. Ben must accept his wife's death, and Travis must resist a ghost impersonating his father. These beats are delivered through haunted house mechanics, not sermons. The movie gestures at feeling without instructing us how to feel. It is amiable, overproduced, and ultimately inconsequential, a $150 million Disney product that lost a great deal of money while displaying brand names with unsettling enthusiasm. As cultural commentary, it is barely present. As a haunted house comedy, it is mild. The classification is straightforward: low heat, faint pulse, no lasting doctrinal residue.