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THE
HAUNTED MANSION
4/10
USA
2003 : Rob MINKOFF : 87 mins
Third Hollywood
movie to be based on a theme-park ride after The Country Bears and
Pirates of the Caribbean.
Source this time is 'Dark ride' variant : ghost-train-style shenanigans
for kids. Film perhaps a little too scary for target audience. Most upsetting
item (even for arachnophobe adults) : the messy (and very early-on) 'whacking'
of a large non-supernatural spider minding its own business on a wall
(let's hope an octo-ped prosthetic was employed).
Shoddy FX
('breathing door' an unwise nod to The Haunting) - all of it laborious
and incessantly muzaked-up. Most bizarre screen credit of the year: presence
of the Bulgarian Women's Choir (of Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares
eighties fame; later popped up on Kate Bush's The Sensual World LP;
vocally 'battled' the tide at Craster.) No mystere of any kind
here: flat stuff, sans magic. Eddie Murphy + on-screen wife (Marsha Thomason,
gamely and convincingly essaying Yank accent) are estate agents (realtors)
checking out implausibly stately mansion put on the market by languid
Byronic-Brit aristo (Nathaniel Parker).
Classy supporting
cast: Wallace Shawn slumming, Jennifer Tilly (gets most of good laughs
as disembodied spirit head residing in a crystal ball.) Terence Stamp
glowers as aristo's butler. What's happening to Stamp's career? Post-Limey,
he's returned to demeaning roles. How? Who is his agent? Does he have
one? So desperate for work??? Reduced to ramrod-stiff Karloffish 'scary
albino' (who doesn't even speak English correctly at one point: "He
hung himself", rather than "hanged.")
Expect a little
better from Minkoff (who did Stuart
Little) and scriptwriter Berenbaum (Elf).
Cobbled together, feels as though rewritten/re-edited/generally mucked
around with. Collection of scenes: 'graveyard of ghosts' segment features
veteran British dwarf-actor Deep Roy (continues in steady work - also
appears in Big Fish).
Some moments of oddball weirdness along the way: amusingly surreal Mighty
Wind-ish bit involving five marble-monument barbershop singers:
"You left your key ... in a mausoleum ... down there in Dixie!"
Dixie: all
takes place in Louisiana. In traditional Cat and Canary movies
all black characters were insultingly confined to Stepin Fetchit comic
relief: Murphy one of the first non-white stars. Taken for granted these
days. Haunted Mansion has clear but unspoken racial subtext. 'Albino'
Stamp refers to obstacles blocking his boss's former-life romance with
former-life Thomason: ominous talk that "the union was ... unacceptable"
as they came from "different ... worlds". Sits uncomfortably
with project's general air of kiddie-oriented larkishness.
27th April,
2004
(seen 23rd January : Cineworld, Milton Keynes – CinemaDays
event)
by Neil
Young
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