Warning: contains spoilers! There are significant details concerning “Haunted Mansion” in the following story. Justin Simien worked as a cast member at Disneyland in California while he was still enrolled in film school.
He would use his lunch breaks while working at Grizzly River Run to visit other theme parks’ attractions, such the well-known Haunted Mansion. After over 20 years, Simien took his favourite ride to the big screen in Disney’s “Haunted Mansion” (now in theatres), which features more Easter eggs than the White House lawn in the spring.
The new film is filled with allusions to the horrifyingly exhilarating appeal, some of which are more overt than others. Keep an eye out for the watchful marble busts that lurk in the distance while paintings of people holding guns and floating candelabras come to life.
The bride, caretaker, opera singer, and other beloved spirits appear, along with Madame Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis), who introduces the movie with a memorable quote from the ride: “Welcome, foolish mortals.”
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Simien, whose previous films include “Dear White People” (2014) and “Bad Hair” (2020), said, “I want folks to know that we really paid attention and made this thing out of love for the ride.”
Jamie Lee Curtis and Tiffany Haddish talk about the most recent iteration of the Disney attraction “Haunted Mansion”
Disney enthusiasts will like these joyful haunts and sinister details, to name a few: Ben (LaKeith Stanfield), a paranormal investigator who visits the estate to look into spectral encounters, is the main character of the film.
As in the attraction, as the space enlarges, the paintings on the wall expand out and reveal dreadful objects like alligators, quicksand, and dynamite. All of those horrors appear on screen in the movie and present challenges for Ben’s escape.
Haddish, “it wasn’t just her in a blue-screen set — there was really a track underneath, almost like an actual roller coaster ride that would rotate and move her,” Simien said of the chair scene’s filming. ‘This is the most fantastic thing I’ve ever done,’ I thought. It was quite practical and mechanical.
Simien claims that there are a few unforgettable moments on the voyage that “cry out to be set pieces.” “Once we realised that the main mansion escape would take place in the stretching room, we had to ask ourselves, ‘OK, so why is it stretching?'” And does that benefit them or harm them in any way? “
Psychic medium Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), who enrages the wicked spirits of the estate during a séance, assists Ben in his ghost search. Her chair then tips back and shoots out the front door, giving a smart homage to the ride’s “Doom Buggies,” which ferry guests through the attraction in Disney parks.
With Haddish, “it wasn’t just her in a blue-screen set — there was really a track underneath, almost like an actual roller coaster ride that would rotate and move her,” Simien said of the chair scene’s filming. ‘This is the most fantastic thing I’ve ever done,’ I thought. It was quite practical and mechanical.