Director: Walt Disney
Release Date: December 2, 1929
Stars: Mickey Mouse
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘The Haunted House’ is Mickey’s first horror cartoon.
In this short he hides from a thunder storm in a house, which appears to be haunted by skeletons. A cloaked skeleton orders Mickey to play on a harmonium, while all the skeletons dance. This sequence reuses some footage from ‘The Skeleton Dance‘.
There is a genuine feel of horror in some of the scenes, but in the end this short resembles the boring song-and-dance-routines of both the early Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphony series too much to be a stand out. Mickey would return to the horror genre in ‘The Gorilla Mystery‘ (1930) and ‘The Mad Doctor‘ (1933), with much better results.
Watch ‘The Haunted House’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Mickey Mouse cartoon No. 14
To the previous Mickey Mouse cartoon: Jungle Rhythm
To the next Mickey Mouse cartoon: Wild Waves
