The best Easter eggs in the new Haunted Mansion

From doom buggies to a floating candelabra, Haunted Mansion is packed with insider nods to the Disney ride

By Luke Y. Thompson | July 28, 2023 | 12:00pm

Film Features Haunted Mansion

The best Easter eggs in the new Haunted Mansion

Haunted Mansion Photo: Disney

The 2023 version of Haunted Mansion, like its cinematic predecessor in 2003 and the Muppet TV special in 2021, is loaded with Easter egg references to the classic Disneyland ride. That’s as it should be—since 1969, visitors and tourists have flocked to the original attraction and its numerous variations, creating generations of filmgoers who’ll absolutely be on the lookout for the inside jokes embedded in director Justin Simien’s remake.

While we don’t claim to have caught them all, we’ve do think we’ve captured a baker’s dozen worth of the best references and callbacks, some of which only obliquely involve the ride itself. But before you dive into our list, let’s be clear about just what an Easter egg is. It is not the appearance by a ride character in a significant role, like Jared Leto’s Hatbox Ghost, or Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota, who both have plenty of scenes and lots of dialogue. Instead, the references that follow are all elements tied to the ride that you could miss without the right context. And before you proceed, here’s one last note of caution: beware of spoilers!

A ghost will follow you home

Most haunted house movies involve the main characters trying to leave. Eddie Murphy, star of the 2003 Haunted Mansion film, . But in the new Haunted Mansion, leaving doesn’t necessarily help.At the end of the theme park ride, the disembodied voice known as the Ghost Host (Paul Frees) warns that “a ghost will follow you home,” and riders see projections of ghosts in the mirror, seeming to be riding beside them. In the movie, ghosts actually do follow the characters home, where they proceed to torment the poor souls until they return to the mansion. They’re not unlike kids who pester their parents with the phrase, “When can we go back to Disneyland again?”

Angle of approach

To ensure that fans really feel like they’re getting the theme park experience, director Justin Simien made sure that the first angle at which the audience sees the mansion is the same they see in the park.“We got down to the point where we were obsessing over the angle you first see the mansion when you walk onto the ride in Disneyland, wanting to get just the angle right, when we see it through the gates and we see the pillars, that angle has to hit,” . “That’s how specific we were. When you first glide through the dining hall and you see the waltzing dancers, that angle had to be right, because that’s the one where you gasp on the ride.”

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Deck the halls

The décor of the haunted mansion absolutely has to look right, from the literal to the metaphysical. It’s one thing to show a candelabra floating down an endless-looking hallway, but it’s another to make sure the wallpaper’s correct as well! Thankfully, it is in the movie.As for that 13-hour clock, well, it’s not just a key ride sight, but also a Disney parks in-joke. Typically when there is no wait for a ride, the standby lines will post a wait time of five minutes (for the sake of leeway). For the Haunted Mansion, however, , given the number’s status in superstition.

Bust a (ghostly) move

Some familiar ugly busts appear in the living room that the movie’s paranormal investigators make their base camp. These busts seem to be looking right at anyone who passes by, as they do in the ride. But while inanimate objects are easy to move onscreen, the real ones on the ride use a simpler effect. They’re not busts at all, but relief sculptures carved back into the walls. Lighting tricks the brain into thinking the negative space is actually positive, and makes the faces seem to turn and follow.

Marvel Legends of Color

Young Travis (Chase W. Dillon) plays with Marvel action figures who, in his collection, are notably all BIPOC characters. Storm, from the ’90s X-Men line by Toy Biz, is a particularly classic one for him to have. More modern Marvel Legends make sense as recent purchases, from Native American mutant Warpath to African supervillain Rock Python of the Serpent Society. Towering above them all, of course, is Titan Hero-scaled Black Panther.Ben later gifts Travis a discount store figure of a made-up, less super heroic character who hits people with his shoe. It’s the thought, not the synergy, that counts—Marvel wasn’t part of the Disney theme parks in 2003, but these days, the superheroes need their space there too.

Losing their heads

The Bride is one of the most notable ghosts on the ride, hanging out in an attic with her axe and a trail of dead husbands. The movie recreates her attic nicely as well as the attic’s most subtle effect: mysterious photos of the Bride in life with her exes. As you pass the photos, the heads of the husbands disappear, strongly suggesting the ultimate fates they met. The movie makes sure to have the same effect, although it takes place out of Ben’s field of vision. It’s a more impressive thing to see practically, as the movie version was likely achieved easily with CG.

A ride to your doom

The Doom Buggy vehicle is ingenious in its ability to direct the rider’s attention toward a given effect, and to make groups of two or three feel isolated on the otherwise crowded ride. Logically and diegetically, however, they make no sense: why are there two-person pods running through a haunted house?The movie tries to answer that, by showing that the Doom Buggy may in fact simply be the largest chair from the seance room, propelled through the house by supernatural forces as a way to expel nosy guests that the Hatbox Ghost doesn’t want hanging around.

Duly noted

As parkgoers enter the ride, they might hear the same four notes of music, played on an organ, subtly in the distance. The movie’s considerably less subtle, putting them in at every possible opportunity on the soundtrack.Those notes also form the basis of the song, “Grim Grinning Ghosts,” sung on the ride by animated busts in the graveyard. The busts appeared in the 2003 movie, but not this one. However, while nobody full-out sings the song with lyrics, numerous instrumental versions fill out the rest of the soundtrack.

Haunted Mansion Holiday

At the end of the movie, we see that the house as been decorated for Halloween, presumably by Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and Travis. At Disneyland, that sort of decoration happens as well, both inside and out, for the holiday edition of the ride. It’s a crossover event for the park, as the one responsible for the decorating is The Nightmare Before Christmas’ Jack Skellington, who appears on the ride itself between Halloween and Christmas. For Jack to have appeared in the movie, though, would have cost more money. Even if a post-credits sequence referencing him would set park fans applauding.

Ritual in reverse

When Harriet (Tiffany Haddish) finally utters the incantation that will defeat the Hatbox Ghost, it may sound familiar. In the original ride, it’s uttered by Madame Leota. But it’s for a very different purpose. Leota is using it to summon spirits, and invite the ghostly guests in the house to appear. Harriet’s usage is to banish the bad ghost, before he can use his Jared Leto powers of persuasion to trick Ben into killing himself for the sake of his newfound friends.

The Scooby Doo doorways

Towards the end of the movie, Father Kent (Owen Wilson) tries to get the angry spirits to chase him, and he leads them back and forth across a long hallway, going in one side door and out another, appearing both further back and forward from his previous position. This is clearly a tribute to Scooby Doo, which featured such chase scenes regularly.But why the reference? Scooby Doo debuted in 1969, the same year the Haunted Mansion opened, and its villains routinely used the same tricks as the ride—the Pepper’s Ghost illusion, mirror tricks, glowing paint, back-lighting and hidden black-lighting—to fool onlookers into believing in the supernatural, if only for nine minutes.

Imagine-eerie

All good Disney nerds, and anyone who saw the 2003 movie, know that the official name of the Haunted Mansion is Gracey Manor, named after Yale Gracey, one of two Disney Imagineers put in charge of the ride’s supernatural illusions. The other, Rolly Crump, gets name-checked in the movie when the characters discover that the evil Hatbox Ghost’s name is actually Alistair Crump.Crump died earlier this year at the age of 93. As the designer of many beloved park attractions, he’s significantly less evil than the specter who bears his name. As the designer of It’s a Small World, however, his spirit still has the power to drive grown men to madness. Listen carefully and you might hear some familiar strains of that ride’s tune.