Haunted Mansion 4K Ultra HD

Inspired by the classic theme park attraction, "Haunted Mansion" tells the story of Gabbie (Rosario Dawson), a single mom, who discovers that the home she and her son share is haunted by irksome ghosts. Hoping to restore domestic tranquility, Gabbie recruits a motley crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid the house of the supernatural squatters. (Gary Reber)

Special features include the featurettes "Making Haunted Mansion" (HD 13:05) and "999 Happy Haunts" (HD 7:05), eight deleted scenes (HD 10:46), bloopers (HD 02:33) and a Movies Anywhere digital copy.

The 2.39:1 2160p HEVC/H.265 4K Ultra HD HDR10 picture, reviewed on a VIZIO Quantum X P85QX-JI UHD/HDR display, was photographed digitally using the Arri Alexa LF and Arri Alexa Mini LF camera systems and sourced from a 4K Digital Intermediate. Picture quality is excellent with a dark presence throughout, enhanced with effective lighting effects that provide just enough light to reveal delineations in the shadows.The darkness is so deep that viewing requires a darkened, preferable black environment and a display capable of rendering black "black". Of course, with such dark imagery resolution is challenged. Nonetheless, resolution is decent and when the lighting is effective detail is revealing. The lighter scenes exhibit excellent detail. As for color fidelity the picture exhibits warm and rich hues that at times are nicely saturated. Hue shading are nuanced. HDR contrast is effectively wide even during the darkest scenes with white highlight spotting the sets. This is a well crafted shadowy picture that delivers fun frights by the spirits. (Gary Reber)

The Dolby Atmos/Dolby TrueHD 7.1-channel soundtrack is dynamic sounding with plenty of supporting atmospherics and sound effects that punctuate. Such is supported with deep sub-25 Hz bass in the .1 LFE channel. The deep bass provides support for the expansive and dynamic orchestral/choral score that presents a wide and deep soundstage and aggressive surround envelopment. The music is prominent throughout. Atmospherics are often subtle but effective. Foley sound effects are also effective for their synchronization to the on-screen mayhem. Dialogue is intelligible and decently integrated spatially, Crump's voice is deep and resonates throughout the soundfield.

The Immersive Sound element is comprised of numerous sound effects including thunder and all manner of creaky sonics, screams, dialogue extension, clock midnight chimes, brief music segments, and other atmospherics. During the last half to the end, the sonic action intensifies with strong music and sound effects extension. Crump's voice also is strong during this time. This makes for a far better utilization of the height layer for enhanced spatial dimensionality.

This is fun take on ghosty spirits with all manner of sound effects for an exciting holosonic® spherical surround outing for home theatre dynamics. (Gary Reber)