With the recent announcement of an iconic new Haunted Mansion Bride sipper cup coming to Disneyland, and a new portrait of said bride in the new Disneyland shop Leota’s Somewhere Beyond, could we soon see a big re-design of an iconic Haunted Mansion character?
The Bride is a significant part of Disney’s Haunted Mansion, an original creation from famed Imagineer Marc Davis, with an entire attraction scene devoted to her. She is one of two explicitly malevolent ghosts, along with the Hatbox Ghost being in the attic; the place where displaced, isolated spirits reside.
Neither of those new portrayals look exactly like the current version inside the attraction, and it’s leading a lot of us fans to believe there’s a new Bride soon to be revealed when Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion reopens on January 18th… and hopefully in the near future for Walt Disney World’s version!
Lest we forget past versions of the mansion’s Bride in the Attic, when she used to look much… creepier. Peering back into the Bride’s mysterious backstory: the original Bride was mostly portrayed as a silent, menacing figure who carries a constant feeling of dread and danger. It’s unknown as to why she murdered her husbands, but it was assumed she was a black widow seeking their money – something that was later incorporated into the newer character, Constance.
— Image credit: Villains Wiki
She’s dark. She’s spooky. She’s homicidal for goodness’ sake. When it comes to her character design, the less illuminated details, the better. I, along with a lot of you Haunted Mansion fans out there, have been longing for a redesign of Constance the Bride / Beating Heart Bride / Corpse Bride / add name here.
I had a few nitpicks with the 2023 Haunted Mansion film, but they did get a few things right, including the Bride’s ghostly design and murderous background. (I wanted to see much more of her, maybe instead of pushing Hatbox so much, but that’s a rant for another time.) Upon walking out of the film, I thought “wait, can we have a new Bride in the attraction now? She’s currently not -that- scary“, and don’t we all want to be a little spooked when we ride the Haunted Mansion?
Let’s hope there’s more to that new sipper cup and portrait prop… What do you think?
