FilmComicsExplained: The Haunted Mansion (2003)
SPOILER ALERT!
The Haunted Mansion is a 2003 hit horror comedy family film, based on the hit Disney Parks attraction of the same name. Starring Eddy Murphy (Shrek) and Jennifer Tilly (Family Guy, Child’s Play/Chucky), the film is about a family in upstate Louisiana who travel to and explore an isolated mansion in a secluded bayou, full of over 999 happy haunts and infamously, the undead.
Decades after the supposed suicide of a woman named Elizabeth and the following suicidal hanging of her love life, Edward Gracy, the owner of Gracy Manor, an estate in the bayou/s of Lousiana, we fast forward to the present day where somehow, the mansion (now deserted supposedly) has known of the Evers family. In the family is Eddy Murphy’s Jim Evers, a local real estate agent, along with his wife, Sara, and their children, Michael and Megan. They are invited to dinner at the mansion by a mysterious voice over the phone, unveiling soon-to-be that of the film’s main villain, Ramsey, a deceased and ghostly butler in supposed loyal service to the late Gracy. It intervenes with their road trip but it is worth for them (for now).
Upon reaching the property, the family is taken in and greeted by Gracy who invites them to also stay the night at the mansion when a rain storm has swollen the road temporarily. While Jim and Sara have a minor fight, leading Ramsey to divert Jim to the library per his master’s supposed request, Megan and Michael find a ghost ball that leads them to the attic where they discover the painting of the deceased Elizabeth, resembling Sara. As Jim looks for his family, Gracy gives Sara the last min tour of the mansion, explaining the fate of Elizabeth, still believing she has ended herself.
Finding Madame Leoto (voiced by Tilly) who chases Jim away via enchanted musical tools, Jim is confronted with the painting of Elizabeth, thanks to Michael and Megan (plus, their ghost friends, loyal to Gracy). It is all because a curse is keeping them from transferring to Kingdom Come (heaven/the afterlife) that is plaguing the mansion. Advised by Leota, Jim and the kids (aided by their ghostly allies) travel to the graveyard where many ghosts remain on Earth and on the property due to the curse binding them for eternity. Three of them are hitchhiking ghosts.
After a brief encounter with the singing busts, Jim and Megan find and claim a sacred key in a mausoleum from a dead man who comes back to life right away. Jim beheads the fiend with a torch as Megan grabs the key that Jim has earlier accidentally dropped in the water. But then, numerous zombies emerge and confront the two. Before they can escape, Ramsey (off-screen) closes the door on them and infects it with spiders. Michael, despite his high fear of spiders, helps Jim and Megan exit alive.
In Leota’s lair, she tells Jim and others that they must use the key to open the chest in the attic. Jim then uncovers a love letter that unveils Elizabeth not dying of suicide and at the time, Ramsey appears, confirming to be the real reason she is dead. Ramsey tells Jim that he has staged Elizabeth’s suicide by poisoning her with tainted wine before stealing and hiding away her love letter to Gracy all that time. Ramsey claims that Gracy has intended to throw away his life for that poor girl, believing she has corrupted him at the beginning.
Threatening to expose Ramsey, Jim is cast out by the dead butler from the mansion’s interior (after he detains Michael and Megan in a trunk). Gracy, meanwhile, tries to convince Sara that she is actually is his dead love life. Believing he has gone insane, Sara locks herself in her room where Ramsey putridly persuades Sara to play along with Gracy’s so-called delusion, whether or not she is what Gracy has said she is, because he claims it shall ease his suffering. Also, Ramsey threatens the lives of Megan and Michael to blackmail Sara to do so.
Jim, aided by Leota, drives his car into the heart of the mansion and re-enters it to save Michael and Megan. After a brief fight with Ramsey’s armored suits, he succeeds and barges into the ballroom where the wedding is occurring. Jim then tells Gracy that Ramsey is the cause of the curse on his property by falsifying Elizabeth’s fate and that to lift it, he has to have Sara sacrifice via the poisoned drink he has used on Elizabeth decades before. Gracy, armed with his sword, refuses to listen to reason until Jim gives the literal ghost host the stolen letter, exposing Ramsey as a treasonal conspirator. Ramsey is rebuked by Gracy of Elizabeth’s actual death, forcing Ramsey to release his dark spirits on Gracy and others.
It is cut short when a fiery dragon-like demon emerges from the firepalce and brings Ramsey to Hades. After being saved by Gracy, Jim finds out Sara has drunken the poisoned booze right before Ramsey’s exposure as a dead felon. But then, the ghost ball reappears and exposes itself as Elizabeth. She reunites with her long-lost love life and they alongside the other earth-bond souls transfer to Heaven for good. In the process, Sara is then revived.
The road trip begins as planned despite the annoyance of the singing busts packed in the back of their vehicle, ending the film on a positive note.