The Los Angeles Times has shared a first look at updates to The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland before the ride reopens on Saturday, January 18.
The LA Times states:
As for the would-be honeymooner in the attic, she’s now utilizing the latest in projection technology, appearing to float before guests as she holds a three-pronged physical candelabra, giving corporal depth to her ethereal glow, which hovers away from a shattered window of a wall. Her blindingly red heart, in a nod to the park’s original vision of the bride, still beats in time to an elongated, gloomy rendition of Richard Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus.”
“We thought, what if we change the story back a little bit to the original story that the Imagineers had about a lost bride in the attic mourning the loss of her husbands,” said Imagineer Kim Irvine. “It was a sad thing. It was a story about lost love.”
Irvine says the attic scene was redone, in part, because the projection technology on the prior figure had become so outdated as to necessitate regular maintenance. But rather than update what was there, Irvine saw an opportunity to add a greater contrast with the more festive waltz in the prior room as well as to embellish the Mansion’s tale.
The candelabra, for instance, that the character is holding is identical to the one visible floating in an earlier hall scene, now implying the bride is broodingly wandering the Mansion. Additionally, the candelabra will appear a third time, materializing in a cemetery crypt in the ride’s final act.
“The bride that used to be in there was an axe murderer, and in this day and age we have to be really careful about the sensitivities of people,” Irvine said. “We were celebrating someone chopping off her husband’s heads, and it was a weird story. I know the fans — some will like it and some will say, ‘Oh, you changed something again.’ That’s our job. That’s what we’re here for.”
The LA Times story also includes video of the bride.
Irvine addressed potential changes to the hanging corpse in the attraction’s iconic stretching room. It seems the corpse remains for now but Irvine said they are still thinking about changing the potentially triggering moment.
“We’re still looking at that,” she said. “That one is complicated, structurally … One thing at a time.”
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