Haunted Mansion (DVD)

After the success of Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion wasn't as openly received by critics despite the fact that it made nearly $75 million at the box-office.

Haunted Mansion is a huge extravaganza of special effects with a story that doesn't manage to appeal as much as the effects. Eddie Murphy has become a favorite of mine as the voice of animated characters, namely Donkey in Shrek and that little dragon in Mulan, whatever his name was, but he doesn't really interest me outside of the animated world. Every time I hear his voice now I associate him with those other characters and he just doesn't look right on screen, and so goes Haunted Mansion.

This is the story of Jim Evers (Murphy), who is a non-stop real estate agent who finds himself pushing everything to the side for the sale, including his 10 year anniversary with his wife, played by Marsha Thomason. To make things up to his wife he promises her and the kids a weekend away, but things soon change when his wife, or should I say partner in Evers and Evers Real Estate, is requested at the Gracey Mansion as the owner apparently wants to sell.

Needless to say Gracey Mansion is haunted and you are taken through a ride with ghouls and ghosts before the final revelation of the secret that has turned the house to be haunted.

Toted as a creepy comedy it should be mentioned that this movie is in no way funny, or creepy for that matter. It isn't necessarily a bad movie, but when I look to buying a movie on DVD I would like to think that I am going to watch it more than the one time after I get home with it.

The effects in the film are great but the story needs a bit revising, and if you listen to the audio commentaries it sounds as if script revision was going on the entire time, but I would have to say that they needed to do a little more.

As with all Disney DVDs this one is packed with special features, many of which outshine the movie, especially the featurette at the heart of the whole thing "The Haunted Mansion: Secrets Revealed." Along with the other featurette, "Anatomy of a Scene: Ghosts in the Graveyard," what you have here are the two "making-of" features that guide you through the process of turning a house haunted and making those realistic looking ghosts.

One thing this movie has is great special effects and these two features are two excellent looks at how they were done.

As we move along we come to the "Haunted Mansion Virtual Tour" feature where you use your remote to navigate your way through the Haunted Mansion. This is a feature that gets old as soon as you start to watch, and what would have been more exciting was if it was a virtual ride of the Disneyland feature that inspired the film.

Along with the featurettes the disc also has one deleted scene and a blooper reel. Now the blooper reel is not particularly funny at all as it is pretty much just the actors flubbing their lines and with how long it is, it gets tiresome quickly.

Now the deleted scene is really just an extended scene that gives some background that is later found out in the movie, not really worth watching, since after you see the film, you will already know everything that is about to be said.

This disc also comes with not one, but two audio commentaries. One with Producer Don Hahn, Visual Effects Supervisor Jay Redd and Screenwriter David Berenbauhm, which is actually the better of the two since it is a little more light hearted and covers a broad spectrum of what went into the production.

The other commentary is with Director Rob Minkoff and Costume Designer Mona May, which is a commentary that primarily focuses on the costumes in every single scene. This commentary should have either been deleted or these two should have joined up the other three to make a MEGA-commentary that would have touched on everything.

The funniest thing on this DVD may be the chance to watch Rudy, I mean Raven, the girl that played Rudy on the "Cosby Show" perform a music video of Stevie Wonder's "Superstition". This remake of the song is so bad and the video is so cheesy that it is 100% unwatchable. I was actually embarrassed for her as she tried to act like she could sing, in a video that looked like it was shot on a camcorder, as performers strut around in the mist from a bucket of dry ice.

Moving on, after taking Haunted Mansion out of the DVD player you aren't done yet, it has loads of features for your computer including Photo Galleries, Desktop Themes/Wallpaper/Screensavers, Enhanced Virtual Mansion Tour, The History Of The Haunted Mansion Attraction and Morphing Ghost Host Maker.

The majority of these are pretty self explanatory but I will tell you a quick bit about the "Morphing Ghost Host Maker" feature. This is a feature where you can take a picture of yourself or anyone you know (or don't know for that matter, I don't care) and turn them into a ghost using the software that comes with the DVD. This will be fun for kids and their parents, but for the rest of you, you won't be too interested.

On a whole, I would advise not buying this one, rather renting it. If you like the movie, then by all means shell out the cash, but if you are one of those people that head to the stores every Tuesday to pick up a couple of the latest releases skip right over this title.