Despite a starry cast, 'Haunted Mansion' is scarily bland

Arriving in New Orleans to make a fresh start, Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son Travis (Chase W. Dillon) move into a sprawling but abandoned mansion with the intention of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast. There's just one problem - it's haunted with several ghosts. Enlisting the help of a tour guide (Lakeith Stanfield), an exorcist priest (Owen Wilson), a psychic (Tiffany Haddish) and a historian (Danny DeVito), they try to unearth the secrets of the haunted mansion...

Every few years, Disney tries to craft some movie franchises out of its theme park attractions. 'Jungle Cruise' with Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt was reasonably good fun, evoking the kind of serial adventures of the thirties with a reasonable chuckle thrown in occasionally from its game and affable cast. Being that 'Pirates of the Caribbean' was such a spectacular success initially and dwindled in quality and star power as the years wore on, Disney is eager to find another transmedia success story. 'Haunted Mansion', unfortunately, isn't going to be it.

For one, 'Haunted Mansion' suffers from a distinct lack of laughs or scares. It's so obvious from watching it that everyone involved is trying their damnedest to make it work, and falling over themselves to throw every joke out there. Danny DeVito goes full-on slapstick at every juncture, Owen Wilson is as gregarious and upbeat as he's been in years, and you've even got Lakeith Stanfield weirding things up as an astrophysicist-turned-tour guide. Even with the stacked cast of comedic talent, 'Haunted Mansion' falls over itself again and again by the mere fact that it's trying to make a leather purse out of a sow's ear. At least with 'Pirates of the Carribbean', you have a rich history of swashbuckler movies to draw upon, much like 'Jungle Cruise' had tropical adventures.

Horror comedy, as a general rule, have a few avenues available to be effective. The first is that audiences are in on the joke of how ridiculous horror movies are, with examples such as 'Scary Movie' or 'The Cabin In The Woods' mining horror's long history of going way, way over the top. Another is that it's going to be macabre, gallows humour throughout in the vein of 'Evil Dead', 'Ghostbusters', or any of Peter Jackson's weird and wonderful early work. Being that this is a Disney movie, and more pointedly, a Disney movie based on a theme park ride, neither of these are open to director Justin Simien or writer Katie Dippold. What you're left with is something that's not terribly funny, or terribly scary either.

In a summer that's been rammed with world-beating blockbusters, 'Haunted Mansion' isn't just out of place but out of touch with audiences. It's far too safe and bland to be an effective horror-comedy, and much too unoriginal to make an impact. Ultimately, 'Haunted Mansion' passes like a ghost through the audience and disappears from memory shortly after.