There’s just a little too much going on in Disney’s Haunted Mansion. It seems to want to dip its toe into as many genres as it can, but doesn’t give any of them enough time to actually pay off. There are some great concepts and the cast is solid, but it just doesn’t fire on all cylinders.

Using the famed Disney attraction as a launching point, the film brings in a number of actors, characters, and story threads into one big sprawling story.

Ben (LaKeith Stanfield) is a former quantum physicist who is still reeling from the loss of his wife and is recruited by a mother, Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her son, Travis (Chase Dillon) who have moved into a huge mansion just outside New Orleans, unfortunately, it’s haunted.

So leave right?

Nope, the spirits follow anyone who leaves and force them to return to the mansion. And now, Ben is caught up in it, as is an iffy priest, Kent (Owen Wilson), a possible medium, Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), and a history professor, Bruce (Danny DeVito). Together they have to dig into the mystery of the mansion, what is haunting the haunters, and how is the threatening Hat-Box Ghost (Jared Leto).

The effects are decent, the nods to the attraction are everywhere, and there are a couple of fun cameos including Jamie Lee Curtis and Winona Ryder.

Ben’s character has a great story arc, and the film could have worked well had it just followed that. Instead, we’re also diving into a whole bunch of other things. If the story had simply followed the arcs of Travis and Ben, it would have worked on its own, and they could have saved everything else for potential sequels. Instead, it feels like everything gets shoehorned in, none of it is given enough attention as a consequence, and it plays as a bit of a mess.

There are great moments of fun and scary delight, and some of the visual gags (still paying homage to the actual attraction) work wonderfully. But it’s not quite enough. I realize the film has to be right there on the edge of being family-friendly, it is a Disney film after all, but the film could have leaned into the spooky aspect of it a little more.

I saw some real potential in this one, and settled in to watch, giving it the benefit to the doubt, but it just doesn’t work as well as it could have. It may be a little too much for younger viewers, tweens may enjoy it, but the rest of it feels like a missed opportunity, and that’s too bad, because I love this cast.

Let the kids watch this one for Halloween and find something a little scarier for yourself for your festive scares.