Sir Alistair Crump, later known as the Hatbox Ghost, is the main antagonist of the 2023 film Haunted Mansion. He was portrayed by Jared Leto.
He is an evil spirit that haunts the mansion that was purchased by Gabbie, terrorizing her and her son Travis when they moved in. This would lead to Gabbie hiring Father Kent, Ben Matthias, Harriet, and Bruce Davis to rid the mansion of it's restless spirits.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Young Alistair with his father Addison Crump.
Alistair was the son of an overbearing wealthy socialite Addison Crump and his wife. He and his family lived in a Dutch colonial revival gothic manor in a state neighboring Louisiana. At the age of nine, Alistair's loving mother died, wherein he became inconsolable, having lost the only person he loved. His father berated him for showing so much emotion and frequently abused him ever since. Wanting nothing to do with a son he perceived as weak, Alistair's father expelled him from their home. Shunned by society, Alistair was left with nothing and disappeared, rumored to be traveling the world learning about mysticism and dark arts. He worked his way to rise up the ranks and, upon reaching adulthood, later became a renowned wealthy tycoon.
Claiming the Crump Estate[]
Portrait of Alistair Crump in life.
Years later, Alistair returned and repurchased his old home, regaining entire control of it when his father passed away "under mysterious circumstances". He became famous for throwing lavish parties and invited all of the guests he felt poisoned his father against him as a child, ending each one in a murder spree. Crump stored these bodies in a hidden chamber below his fireplace where they would never be found, with tombstones that appeared to have dark humorous remarks on them. Rumors began to spread of his involvement in black magic, and that these murders were blood sacrifices that allowed Crump to maintain his wealth and power.
Alistair had all the other chairs in the mansion built lower than his so that he would be above everyone else. He also had a wife, whom he cheated on and revealed his affair via hanging up a portrait of his mistress while adorning it with a quote about his proud misogyny. Eventually, his own horrified staff caught up to him after years of abuse and beheaded him, but not before he vowed vengeance from beyond the grave. At this point, he became the Hatbox Ghost, while his skull and hat were left in the same hidden chamber where he left his victims' remains.
Summoned by Gracey[]
Years later, William Gracey purchased a grand estate near the bayous of New Orleans. To help get over his grief of losing his wife, he hired a famed medium named Madame Leota to help him contact her through a seance for a whole year. This released many ghosts into the mansion, the majority of whom are benevolent. However, a mishap causes the spirit of Crump, now taking on the form the Hatbox Ghost, to be brought back. Alistair impersonated Gracey’s wife and convinced Gracey to take his own life, and trapped Leota in her crystal ball when she attempted to identify him.
Alistair Crump's main objective was to capture 1000 souls for a ritual, allowing him to leave the Mansion. Over the decades that he's been causing chaos at the Haunted Mansion, he was able to influence every person who's entered to willingly cross over to the other side and surrender their soul, in hopes of one day being free to use his dark magic on the world of the living without constraint. In his time at the Haunted Mansion, he was responsible for sixty-six deaths. In the process, he not only torments his victims but also the ghosts who remain in the Haunted Mansion to do his bidding, forever unable to be at rest.
Events of the Haunted Mansion[]
Crump continued to torment the new owners of the mansion, a widowed doctor and her son Travis, after they moved in, as well as the people they sought help from: a con-artist posing as a clergyman, a widowed astrophysicist, a medium, and a history professor. With help from Madame Leota, they were able to identify him and find his hat at his old mansion to perform a ritual that would send him to the Regions Beyond and free the ghosts. During this time, Crump offered to have Ben kill himself to see his wife again, and confronted him in a dream sequence which featured the Hitchhiking Ghosts and Caretaker spirit. All the while, he posed as Travis' late father to lure the child and take his life.
Ben was able to prevent Travis from getting his should taken by the Hatbox Ghost. During a fight in the graveyard, Ben gathers courage to overcome his grief of losing his wife, and with the combine forces of the ghosts, he is able to banish Crump to the regions beyond.
Personality[]
Alistair Crump was described to be a "very bad man" in life. Due to his poor upbringing, Alistair grew up to be just as cruel as his father (if not more so).
Appearance[]
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The character's names are allusions to two real-life figures:
- Alistair's surname is a tribute to Imagineer Rolly Crump, who died in 2023, the same year that the movie was released.
- Alistair's name and association with occultists is likely an allusion to historic occultist and founder of modern satanism, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947).
- Crump Manor is modeled after the WDW and Tokyo versions of the Haunted Mansion. However, the home is ambiguously placed several hours north of New Orleans past the Louisiana state line rather than in the Hudson River Valley of New York. This was to make up for the titular mansion being based entirely on the Disneyland version.
- Given the backstory of the Hatbox Ghost in this version, he could be classified as a tragic villain. However, Crump's motivations within the plot itself are neither rationalized nor grounded in a sympathetic motivation, as he simply wants to gain power via enslavement, murder and coercions to suicide.
- This mirrors the Beast Prince in the 2017 adoption of Beauty and the Beast. Both characters developed a cruel nature and hostile demeanor as a result of a harsh upbringing.
- As such, this element helps the audience hold sympathy for him despite his evil misdeeds.
- When Gabbie is chased out of the Mansion, the Hatbox Ghost says, "You'll be back" in a manner similar to Little Leota from the original attraction. He quotes lines of the Ghost Host from the original attraction.
- Alistair falls to the Regions Beyond in a similar manner to how the main antagonist Ramsley fell to Hell in the 2003 movie.
- According to test screening viewers, deleted exposition dialog mentioned Alistair Crump's obsessions with the occult leading him to buy various haunted properties across the country, including a place in Thunder Mesa, alluding to Phantom Manor.[1]
- The surname Crump, while a tribute to imagineer Rolly Crump, had previously been used for the caretaker's name of Silas Crump in the Magic Kingdom's Haunted Mansion.