Report: Haunted Mansion Secretly Being Changed To Avoid Offending Disney Park Guests - Inside the Magic (2024)
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Posted on by Chloe James8 Comments
Rumor has it that a major change is heading for Haunted Mansion at Disneyland Resort.
Disney’s theme parks are packed with top-tier attractions, but few have reached icon status quite like Haunted Mansion. First opened at Disneyland Park in 1969, the dark ride put its own immersive spin on the haunted house concept, with guests boarding Ominmover vehicles known as a “Doom Buggy” to explore a New Orleans mansion packed with “999 Happy Haunts.”
In the decades since it first opened in New Orleans Square, the Haunted Mansion has inspired similar attractions across the globe. At Walt Disney World Resort’s Magic Kingdom Park and Tokyo Disneyland, the Haunted Mansion is built in a Gothic revival style and boasts a slightly longer ride experience.
Meanwhile, Disneyland Paris is home to Phantom Manor, which has a look more in line with the rest of the park’s Frontierland aesthetic. The attraction itself is also tonally darker than its sister parks.
On the other end of the spectrum, Hong Kong Disneyland’s equivalent, Mystic Manor, is free of any references to ghosts or death due to differences in Chinese culture. Instead, it focuses on a magic box that brings inanimate objects to life in a Victorian manor.
The attraction has even inspired two separate adaptations: one in 2003 starring Eddie Murphy and one in 2023 starring LaKeith Stanfield, Owen Wilson, Rosario Dawson, and Danny DeVito. Both failed to set the box office alight or impress criticsbut have developed cult followings in their own right.
Despite all the varieties worldwide, Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion is still often considered the best of the lineup. It’s undergone its fair share of changes over the years, with new scares and technology integrated into the attraction. A festive overlay, Haunted Mansion Holiday – inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) – was also introduced for the first time in 2001 and continues to run at the park every Halloween and Christmas.
That will be the case in 2024. Before that day comes, however, the ride needs to complete its ongoing refurbishment. It first closed in January 2024, with Disney revealing that the queue would be totally reimagined during its closure “to immerse guests in enhanced theming,” with other new additions introduced to “build on the story and lore of the Haunted Mansion.”
But those may not be the only changes heading to Haunted Mansion. Rumor has it that when guests experience the regular version of the attraction again (most likely in 2025, as the ride will be in Haunted Mansion Holiday mode when it returns later this year), it may do so without one familiar scare.
Related: More Paranormal Activity at the Disney Parks
Fans are abuzz on Reddit that Disney is currently in the process of removing the hanging corpse seen in the stretching room before guests board the ride. Haunted Mansion’s disembodied “Ghost Host” points out that as the room has no doors or windows, it has no way out. “Of course,” he adds, “there’s always myway,” with lightning then illuminating a hanging corpse hanging from the ceiling.
There have been rumors that Disney will remove this effect from the attraction in order to be more sensitive and not trivialize suicide. Some guests have complained that this scene feels particularly triggering, with petitions even set up in the past.
Disney is well aware of these complaints. Back in 2021, Michele Hobbs – who works as a producer for Walt Disney Imagineering and previously managed a refurbishment of the attraction – toldLos Angeles Times that the scene’s removal has “been discussed for sure” and that “it’s definitely something that we’re thinking about.”
On Haunted Mansion Holiday, the ceiling of the stretching room is covered with a tarp. The idea is that this tarp will remain in place all year round, and something else will be projected during this section of the ride.
Nooses have been removed from other versions of Haunted Mansion in the past. Nearly all the nooses were removed from Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris in 2023, except for the one that appears during the stretching room scene.
Sensitivity updates have also occurred to other attractions, such as the removal of “we wants the redhead” from Pirates of the Caribbean (which saw said redhead become a pirate auctioning off loot instead of an object at an auction) and the replacement of Splash Mountain – which was inspired by the problematic filmSong of the South(1946) – with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
These changes have kicked in at all Disney locations with these attractions, with the exception of Tokyo Disneyland.
For now, the Haunted Mansion rumor is just that: a rumor. However, considering the fact that Disney itself has admitted to considering this switch in the past, we wouldn’t be surprised if these rumors are correct and the attraction debuts sans-noose in 2025.
Do you think Disneyland should remove the noose from Haunted Mansion?
Before you even go inside the Haunted Mansion, guests will note that the ghostly hearse has changed locations from near the foot of the mansion's stairs to closer to the attraction's entrance. In its original place are three new Lightning Lane posts.
The Haunted Mansion closed for refurbishment on January 22, 2024, while the Grim Grinning Ghosts materialize an expanded queue and a new retail shop. Since a reopening date has not been announced yet, even Madame Leota cannot predict the expected closure dates for January 2025 at this time.
Haunted Mansion Disneyland Exterior. The Mansion's antebellum exterior was designed to resemble the architecture found in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. The Victorian Shipley-Lydecker House in Shipley Hill, Maryland also inspired the design.
In Phantom Manor, the man hanging from the cupola above the Stretching Room is Melanie Ravenswood's fiancé, apparently murdered by the Phantom, who can be seen holding the rope and laughing maniacally.
resort's iconic attraction would close in January 2024 in order to “expand on the story and lore of the Haunted Mansion” ride located in New Orleans Square. This Chilling Airbnb Is Inspired by Disney's Haunted Mansion Ride — See Inside! The Disneyland Resort sign taken in July 2023.
In 2007, the attraction was renovated, with changes including the installation of the changing portraits and lightning-filled windows from the Disneyland version, and new vocals for most of the ghosts in the graveyard.
"Haunted Mansion Holiday," the popular spooky overlay featuring Jack Skellington and friends from "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas," will open July 29, Disney Parks announced. The ride closed for refurbishment in January 2024.
The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland is getting a new garden in the outdoor queue. Construction begins in January 2024. The ride queue itself is set to be completely overhauled, with additional theming and more interactive elements to keep guests entertained as they wait to board their Doom Buggy.
The project will be a joint-venture production between Walt Disney Pictures and Rideback. By April 2021, Justin Simien entered early-negotiations to direct the film, and was officially confirmed as director by July 2021.
Walt Disney (born December 5, 1901, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.—died December 15, 1966, Burbank, California) was an American motion-picture and television producer and showman, famous as a pioneer of animated cartoon films and as the creator of such cartoon characters as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.
In bringing the 999 ghosts of the haunted mansion to life, Simien wanted to use actors and not fill the entire film with computer-generated ghosts. Says Rivera, “He wanted things to feel grounded and realistic, so he put actors in makeup.
Immediately prior to entering Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion attraction, you'll see a headstone that reads, “Dear Sweet Leota, Beloved by All / In Regions Beyond Now, But Having a Ball.” Leota is the Madame Leota character that also appears mid-ride as the floating head in a crystal ball during the séance scene.
The millions of guests that have explored the shadowy confines of the Haunted Mansion have seen Leota “Lee” Toombs Thomas—or at least the likeness of her face. She appears as Madame Leota, the disembodied head that speaks from inside a crystal ball at Disney's creepiest and most ghoulishly fun attraction.
The 'spirited metamorphosis' of the Haunted Mansion is now underway at Disneyland Resort as of Summer 2024, and the additions will build on the story and lore of the Haunted Mansion. The new grounds will immerse guests in “enhanced theming,” as well as a new retail shop adjacent to the attraction's exit.
The guests are then taken to the attic, where most of the usual props and characters have been replaced with a clutter of all sorts of creepy toys and presents.
At Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, the changing portraits hang in the Portrait Corridor, across from a large set of windows looking out on a stormy night. As lightning flashes outside, the paintings flicker into grotesque and monstrous images.
In 1969, the ghosts that appear in the ride were created with a clever, low-tech method know as a Pepper's Ghost, which is effectively a 2D illusion created with reflections and named after John Henry Pepper, who used this projection approach for entertainment during the 1800s.
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