Is the ‘Haunted Mansion’ movie like the ride?

The 2023 movie Haunted Mansion is the latest in a long line of Disney movies based on their theme park rides. The new movie is itself a remake of the 2003 adaptation, similarly named The Haunted Mansion, starring Eddie Murphy. The most famous of these theme park adaptations are the five Pirates of The Caribbean films, which have largely been popular with audiences, even for those unfamiliar with the ride itself.

There are also a number of lesser-known movies based on Disney attractions, including Tower of Terror (1997), The Country Bears (2002) and Jungle Cruise (2021) — the latter being a more recent hit, but not to the same extent as the Pirates movies and warrant demand for sequels. Given the short length of a ride experience, theme park adaptations have to expand and add significant material to the ride’s core story in order to make a feature-length film. This can result in a vastly different end product — which may alienate hardcore Disney parks fans, but occasionally win over people who are not regular theme park-goers.

Is the new ‘Haunted Mansion’ similar to the ride?

The premise of the new Haunted Mansion draws heavily upon a family moving into Gracey Manor, a mansion with the same name and architecture as the Haunted Mansion in Walt Disney World, Florida. Like the Haunted Mansion you can visit at the park, it is based on antebellum architecture and is canonically set in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Similarly, the interior of the mansion was deliberately meant to replicate the real-life experience of visiting the manor. The floor plans of the movie’s Gracey Manor match the canon one of the ride. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, director Justin Simien explained, “We got down to the point where we were obsessing over the angle you first see the mansion when you walk onto the ride in Disneyland, wanting to get just the angle right”. This makes for a highly immersive experience that showcases similar sights to a person’s viewpoint if they were riding through the attraction.

The interiors of Gracey Manor go through similar motions that a person would experience while visiting the attraction. Most notably, the iconic “Stretching Room,” a technical marvel where an octagonal portrait room expands in height, revealing the grizzly deaths of the portrait subjects. There are countless Easter eggs, such as the floating candelabra that greets visitors upon their arrival, and a chair shaped like a “doom buggy” that moves visitors through the attraction.

Characters in costumes straight from the ride weave in and out of the movie’s setting and plot, even if they don’t have their own devoted screen time. For example, the Grand Hall is a focal setting within the film. On the ride, the Grand Hall is filled with ghostly ballroom dancers, powered by a trick effect using animatronics and a light projection. In a fight scene in the movie, the ballroom dancers can be seen flying around the hall.

As for the characters, many familiar faces for theme park fans appear. Most notably, Madame Leota, a spirit living inside a crystal ball, plays a central role in the film as well as the ride. Played by Jamie Lee Curtis in the movie, Leota can bridge communication between humans and the spirit world. Other ghostly figures, such as The Attic Bride and the Mariner Ghost, make appearances in their designated rooms as they do on the ride.

Disney park nerds will appreciate the appearance of the Hatbox Ghost, a more obscure character from the attraction’s lore. The Hatbox Ghost was a character when the ride was initially released, but was pulled in 1969, the same year the attraction debuted, due to the technical limitations of getting the effect to work properly. The figure was reintroduced in 2015, after a nearly 50-year absence. This is a geeky Easter egg for those in the know, but it is not going to be obvious to more casual viewers.

The crux of the story, however, lies upon mortal characters moving into or experiencing the haunting of Gracey Manor. This takes up much of the movie’s screen time, and these characters are developed much more, as opposed to adapting the attraction’s characters. For those who want a beat-for-beat replica of the theme park ride, they may be better off visiting the park than expecting the movie’s plot to be centered around a ride that is roughly 10 minutes long.