Fans of the Haunted Mansion will instantly take note of several things. For one, the movie Mansion is replete with three-candle candelabras, twisted, snake-shaped doorknobs, and wallpaper that is a very particular shade of purple. These are all readily seen on the Disneyland ride, wherein guests sit in moving pods — nicknamed “doom buggies” — taking in a series of terrifying tableaus. In one sequence, actor LaKeith Stanfield wanders down a hallway, and the portrait behind him seems to change each time he passes it. This is a reference to the changing portraits on the ride, wherein a horseman becomes a skeleton, a ship becomes a ghost ship, and a young woman becomes Medusa.
One of the ghosts on the Haunted Mansion ride has been nicknamed the Hatbox Ghost, as it sports a sizeable top hat and carries a box at its side. In the hatbox is a desiccated human head. In the new 2023 film, the Hatbox Ghost will be played by noted method actor Jared Leto.
Another notable ghost from the Disneyland ride is a faceless bride who lives in an attic diorama. Her eyes glow out of the darkness, and visitors can see her glowing heart beating inside her chest. A long string of ghostly grooms appear next to her, say “I do,” and then vanish in pain. The implication is that this bride had murdered multiple husbands in her life. Because the Haunted Mansion was stringently scripted in 1959, the Bride actually has a name: Constance Hatchaway. On the French version of the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland Paris — called Phantom Manor there — a narrator even has a small poem about her, saying:
“Join now the Spirits in Nuptial Doom,
a ravishing Bride, a vanishing Groom…”