The Haunted Mansion, found in Liberty Square, offers the most atmospheric experience of all the rides in the Magic Kingdom. This creepy old mansion rises from the wilderness and looks over the water. It's the perfect place to spend an eternity, as the residential 999 ghosts will all attest to. Don't worry, there's still room for one more.

As you approach this monstrosity of an estate, you can hear far off noises of hellhounds and other creepies from the distance in the nearby forest. Tombstones welcome guests. A crazy-eyed butler greets you and takes your party to the first room of the mansion, the portrait room.

Once inside, the doors close, leaving you to come to grips that there's no way out of the room from where you stand. Suddenly a roaring voice, your ghost host for the evening, foretells of what is to come. Then the enclosed room's walls seem to rise upward into infinity. The hung portraits on all walls stretch, revealing a more sinister side of things - each person's ultimate demise, their deaths.

The next room is where your personal doom buggie, the mansion's main escort, awaits for you. This new transportation takes riders through all the rooms of the house, from the library and dining room to the upstairs attic. During your tour you see plenty of unusual sights. Dancing ghosts, corpses trying to lift up their coffins, a spirit organ player, a séance taking place, and one poor sap with his dog caught in the middle of it all. And just when you think things couldn't get any spookier, your host chimes in, warning about a trio of hitchhiking ghosts. As you look at yourself in the mansion mirrors going by, unseen spirits reveal themselves... their mirror reflections showing them riding right beside you.

This attraction is no doubt one of the Magic Kingdom's best. The mansion's visual make-up is nothing short of astonishing. My only problem with the ride is, even with all the weirdness, it has been totally tuned down from its original design, making it hardly scary at all. The merry attraction tune adds to lighten up things up as well, perhaps a bit too much, but "Grin Grinning Ghosts" is a classic song that you'll come to love for a lifetime.

Media

Download a sample of the ride (.wmv file)

Adventures in the Magic Kingdom: The Haunted House

Things start out in the graveyard outside of the mansion. Your only goal in this stage is to beat a ghostly haunt which the manual calls "Master Spectre." At the beginning he'll lure you into the mansion and all of its traps and you must follow it to the attic and defeat it.

You are equipped with candles to kill off enemies. Make sure you collect as many candle items (which are placed around the level) as you can. You'll notice a homage to the mansion's own graveyard from the ride with the ghost heads that pop up from the grave stones.

Make your way through the graveyard, taking out the ghouls along the way, and enter the forbidden mansion.

Hop across the moving chandelier and take out the hands that stretch from the coffin. The coffin is another prop taken from the ride.

The third portion of this level has floating, dancing ghosts that you might remember from the mansion's dining room scene. There's even an organ here. One hit with your candle will take them out. He really did just die in her arms tonight.

Time your jumps carefully, but also quickly, because of the risk you face of getting squashed when the chandelier rises to the ceiling. You can delay when chairs come by staying to the right.

Hop onto the last chair and ride it up to the next set up challenges.

In the library, shoot the incoming books as soon as you are leveled with them. You will have to duck to hit some, and there's one instance when you might have to jump over one.

Hop from falling chair to falling chair while dodging the ghosts. The topmost chair will require you to give a good jump to miss the flying ghost.

Spooky boss time! This ghoulie might appear regular-looking to the untrained ghostbuster's eye, but it will actually take 8 hits from your candles to exorcise Master Spectre. Gather candles quickly and move as far away from where the ghoul is flying, then hurl those candles! This might be a good time to use some of the many stars you've been collecting. Hit Select and choose Invincible so you don't have to worry about the dead making you dead. To do this, you'll need to have at least 10 stars saved in your inventory. (Note: Freeze does not work on this ghoul!)

The Haunted Mansion is by far the most detailed of all levels in the game. Those familiar with the attraction will notice all sorts of little touches added in; such as the ghost reflection in the mirror, grabbing hands from the coffin, dancing spirits, flying books in the library, and the statues at the end of the stage. If only Capcom did as good a job in detail with the others, I'm sure people would have appreciated the game even more.

RIDE CONVERSION: 8/10