With the new Halloween trilogy all wrapped up, star Jamie Lee Curtis is looking ahead to her next big feature – Justin Simien’s The Haunted Mansion, an adaptation (well, kinda) of the iconic Disney theme park ride. And Curtis, who plays Madame Leota in the film (y’know, the lady in the crystal ball), sounds very excited about it, indeed.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, Curtis says:
“I think they found the sweet spot of scary, funny, and adventure. You know, it’s cooking. I barely cook, I attempt cooking all the time, and it’s all ingredients, and then the mix and the time, and it’s always hard to know, are you going to make something yummy? And from what I’m seeing, and what I’ve heard, Justin has made something yummy.”
Curtis adds that The Haunted Mansion will be scary, but not so scary that you won’t be able to bring your kids to see it. She continues:
“It’s modern, fresh, old-fashioned, and scary, but not scary like a monster movie. It’s scary like a Disney ride, and funny. If you go on that ride, there’s a lot of humor as well as the scary, ghost-y stuff.”
Listen, we love gore and grue and nightmare-inducing imagery as much as anyone here at FANGORIA, but we also recognize that every horror fan starts somewhere, and that “somewhere” is often the low-key spooky horror film we watch as kids. This is how we get the raving, hardcore horror fans of tomorrow, not to mention the next generation of horror filmmakers. Will The Haunted Mansion scare us? No, probably not! But it’ll probably inspire a number of brave kids to seek out something a little … edgier. And for that, we are thankful!
You can read the rest of EW’s chat with Curtis via this link, and you should: she also mentions the elaborate costumes she’ll be wearing in Simien’s film, which might indicate that Madame Leota won’t just be the floating head-in-a-crystal-ball that appears in Disney’s world-famous ride.
Nothing further to report on The Haunted Mansion at this time, but the film’s due to arrive next August, and we’ll keep you informed via further updates as they roll in between now and then. Stay tuned!
