The Haunted Mansion (Promo)

Review by Thomas Glorieux:

Mark Mancina is easily one of those composers people love hearing, but people don't hear him often. Brother Bear was an accessible yet non inspiring listen and buy and for The Haunted Mansion, we had to go to the cinema to hear his score. Or when Walt Disney sold copies from a promotional album somewhere on the market. Anyway, The Haunted Mansion is first of all a better score then Brother Bear will ever be. It of course has much more punch and much more choir to satisfy the fans with and even if it lasts for about 20 minutes, it takes you firm by your grasp. Mancina's voice is surprisingly small at times since the voice we hear at times makes Danny Elfman curious of how he pulled it off. Especially the last 2 score tracks are wild crazy pieces with the over familiar Beetlejuice craziness. 'Meeting Leota' has got the zaniness all right while 'Spinning Table' adds with the zaniness a wild orchestral ride, which in the end is too much. In truth, if the whole album would have been like this, The Haunted Mansion would have gotten the same rating as Beetlejuice and Brother Bear received. But fortunately, that is not the case. The Haunted Mansion has in fact also cohesion and at times very lovely music. The first track for instance 'Main Title' also has a Danny Elfman voice but the growing choir over the playful main theme and a satanic shouting choir (though not an aggressive one like for instance The Omen has) is giving it more punch. And the highlight is the wonderful 'Going to Heaven' which gives a nice theme a swelling of both the orchestra and the choir, making it magic like in tone.

There is of course action adventure music and the begin shows this ample. 'Try Again' has the action intermingling with the choir and its both non thematic yet thrilling. Also 'Rescue' comes of sounding large like with an organ tone setting the mood before the action with large swells of choir make it sound grand and thrilling. 'Sara Runs to Jim' has brief cathedral choir with a lovely piano version of the main theme while 'Vacation at Last' has got a great homage to The Haunting of Jerry Goldsmith, with a waltz like version of the main theme reminding us of 'The Carousel' of that score, and its altogether equally dark as twisted. Together, 20 minutes isn't much but its way more then the original soundtrack had of score. Mark Mancina will be glad with at least a doses of his highly charged score and altogether it isn't as melodic as some of his grander scores, its the power behind the music at times that makes it thrilling and the swelling of the choir that makes us rejoice. The film is another attempt at making theme park attractions into highly entertaining films. For Pirates of the Caribbean it was a box office phenomenon, for The Haunted Mansion it was a dud, despite Eddie Murphy doing what he does best. Ironically, Mancina's score comes off sounding more in the line of the theme park music then Badelt's entertaining yet MV like score for POTC. Anyway, despite the short time, The Haunted Mansion proves still Mancina's talent and I hope to see him on Jan De Bont films soon and on other better and more commercial well fairing movies pretty soon. I still like listening to Mark Mancina and I know he hasn't lost that touch of Bad Boys and Twister, but The Haunted Mansion is still a wild ride, if you find yourself lucky with just 20 minutes of score.

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Tracks

Single Disc

1. Main Title (2.44)

2. Try Again (2.18)

3. Rescue (3.54)

4. Sara Runs To Jim (0.40)

5. Get Away From Her (2.00)

6. Sara Passes Out (0.37)

7. Going To Heaven (1.48) Excellent Track

8. Vacation At Last (1.45)

9. Don't You Remember? (0.41)

10. Meeting Leota (0.41)

11. Spinning Table (2.21)

Total Length: 19.56

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=== Link to Composer Site: Mark Mancina ===