Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion bride has a surprising new story

Jack Skellington has left the building for now as the Haunted Mansion reopens this weekend in its classic glory, but with some surprising major updates.

In a function in the Los Angeles TimesDisneyland executive creative director of Imagineering Kim Irvine talked about some key changes made to one of the most memorable characters of the Haunted Mansion – the bride – to return to the mystery of the origins when the park opened.

“We thought, if we change the story a little bit to the original story that the Imagineers had about a bride lost in the attic mourning the loss of her husbands,” he told the LA Times. “It was a sad thing. It was a story of lost love.”

Gone is the fan-favorite Black Widow backstage, which was part of the attraction’s latest update back in the day. It featured a bride with an interesting sense of agency that added a fun sinister element to the trip with the gag of the heads disappearing from their many husbands (disappearing, because he murdered them with an axe). Times change, as do the elements of the Disney attraction, and Disney Experiences has chosen to return to a more mysterious take.

“The bride that was here before was an ax murderer, and in this day and age we have to be really careful about people’s sensitivities,” Irvine said. “We celebrated that someone cut off the head of her husband, and it was a strange story. I know that the fans – some will like it and others will say: “Oh, you changed something again”. That’s our job. That’s why that we are here.”

Now reinstated as just the unfortunate presence of a haunted bride, which his lovers apparently have ghost her for unknown reasons – maybe they died or maybe they just left her at the altar – it will be interesting to see how this mythology fits into the energy of attraction. We should visit soon to get a better sense of the new bride story and the projection effects before we make too many appeals to support not only women’s rights, but also women’s wrongs.

The Haunted Mansion is now open at the Disneyland Resort in time for the park 70th celebration later this year.

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