Starring: Eddie Murphy (I), Marsha Thomason, Jennifer Tilly

There's a lot of humor centered around the real estate profession in The Haunted Mansion, so it's not too far afield to say that the film is essentially a big money pit.

Much like a fixer-upper, there was serious potential here. But as you invest more and more in the Mansion, it returns less and less. It's structurally unsound while cosmetically appealing. Parents will see a beautiful dining room that has dry rot in the walls and termites in the floor joices. Kids will see a killer banister to slide down.

And Mansion does provide a weird change of pace for those tweens. It's a mixture of textures and styles, of the sorta-frightening and the sorta-humorous, which was done much more successfully in last summer's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. That film's director, Gore Verbinski, had a much more defined vision, and a much, much better screenplay, than anything that Rob Minkoff (Stuart Little and its sequel) has on his hands.

Screenwriter David Berenbaum, who also wrote Elf, starts with a weak conceit, centering on Jim Evers (Eddie Murphy) a real estate agent who can't pull himself away from work, or the allure of another commission (it's the tired old "workaholic dad" cliché). He's in business with his wife, Sara (Marsha Thomason, assaying the thankless "Eddie Murphy's wife" role) who gets a strange phone call. She's requested to come—alone—to the Gracey mansion by a stern and solemn voice that turns out to be the mansion's butler, Ramsley (Terence Stamp). He wants her to meet…basso profundo…"the Master" (Nataniel Parker).

It's revealed that…hang on, SPOILER ALERT—stop reading now if you don't wish some primary plot points to be revealed--Sara is the spitting image of Master Gracey's former love, Elizabeth. Elizabeth had died unexpectedly before a grand ball (all nicely played out in the opening credits) and Gracey had hung himself. The Evers family, with kids in tow, arrive at the Gracey estate and quickly find themselves compelled to stay for the night. But, it turns out that Ramsley intends to force Sara to wed Master Gracey, kill her (so that she in turn becomes a ghost), and then…then…well, it's never really clear what would happen then. Is Master Gracey the unifying force that keeps the mansion in its limbo state? Why did Ramsley, who, let's face it, is just the butler, disapprove of the union in the first place? Was it because Elizabeth was black? And, if so, what changed his mind? Did purgatory make him become more liberal in his views on mixed-race marriages?

These few conundrums are the only ones not explained. Berenbaum's real curse aren't the questions posed, they're the answers given. His bane is literalism, the kind of exposition which strips away a lot of the mystique of the film. Mansion never manages to maintain that eerie quality of the unknown and the paranormal that the ride did. Perhaps because the ride was a sense of experiencing the supernatural whereas this film is an exercise in explaining the supernatural, as part of a driven plot.

There are some very nice touches and scenes. One, where Jim Evers attempts to break the windows of the house, only to see them immediately fix themselves, has that otherworldly feel. There are several nods to the fans of the ride including the ghostly hitchhikers and the musical theme from the old LP. Also effective is the most over-the-top frightening scene, wherein Jim and his daughter must find a key that is kept in a crypt. For those pre-teens not already scare-ified by viewing edgier fare, it's a mostly-safe introduction for kids into the horror genre, and in line with Hocus Pocus, though the Bette Midler vehicle is actually more frightening, and better, than Mansion).

Criticizing Eddie Murphy for his appearance as Jim Evers is like critiquing your garbage man for the way he dumps the trash. He doesn't care, he's not going to listen and hey, it's just a job anyway. Unlike your garbage man, however, what Murphy is doing is not a public service.

Neither is The Haunted Mansion. It lacks the ingenuity and execution of Pirates (itself just a big entertaining gumbo of buccaneer movies) and never successfully delivers on either the comedy angle or the haunted house thrill element. If your option is rent or buy, I suggest rent.