Haunted Mansion Not For The Kids

Disney's new movie The Haunted Mansion is a strangely humorous, yet scary ride. Based on the Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland, you are taken on a tour of the old Gracey Mansion, a palatial estate in Louisiana.

Sarah Evers (Marsha Thomason) is summoned to the mansion as the owner is wanting to sell it...or so it appears. Jim Evers, played by Eddie Murphy, tags along even though it was requested that Sarah come alone.

They bring their kids, Michael (Marc John Jeffries) and Megan (Aree Davis) as well, as they are planning on this to be a "20 minutes tops" stop on their way out of town for a family weekend at the lake.

Once they get to the old, crumbling mansion they soon realize that things are not as they seem.

They are greeted by Ramsley (Terence Stamp), the butler, and lead into a great room where out of thin air Edward Gracey (Nathaniel Parker) appears. Master Gracey is not happy that Sarah has brought Jim with her, but does not let that concern him.

You can tell right off that he is rather taken with Sarah and great measures are taken to ensure that the family must spend the night in the mansion.

It doesn't take long after they are shown to their rooms before the kinds find out that everyone in the house is a ghost. And that Gracey thinks Sarah is his lost love Elizabeth who he has been waiting for to return to him.

None of the other 999 ghost can cross over until Gracey finds his beloved Elizabeth.

While there are several funny parts in this movie, it has equal or more scary parts. And I don't mean kid scary, I mean adult scary. I had my 5-year-old sister, 9-year-old son, 11-year-old son and 11-year-old brother with me and all 4 of them were discussing if they could sleep in their parents rooms as we walked out. Hell, there were a few times I was scared out of my seat myself.

I really enjoyed this movie and the story it told and the visuals were pretty good.

I would give this movie a definite A, but would look at the PG rating before taking little ones. This is definitely a parental guidance suggested movie. I have friends with 12-year-olds that scare easy and told them in no uncertain terms to NOT take their kids to see this.

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