Classic character in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion gets makeover

(KTLA) — More changes have materialized at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride, including a new look and updated storyline for the mansion’s ghostly bride.

Utilizing the latest in projection technology, the bride will now appear to be floating before guests while holding a physical three-pronged candelabra, the Los Angeles Times reported. She will also have a beating red heart, a homage to the attraction’s original bride figure.

Unlike the previous bridal scene, where the former bride Constance Hatchaway was depicted in a wedding dress holding a hatchet, which correlated with her more sinister backstory, the new bride appears to be more grief-stricken and lovesick.

“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,” Kim Irvine, the longtime creative director with Imagineering at Disneyland, told the Times. “It was a sad thing. It was a story about lost love.”

This isn’t the first time Disney has changed the fan-favorite bride character. The first iteration of the character had a physical beating heart when the ride opened in 1969.

Disney changed the characters’ depiction again in the 1990s. In 2006, Hatchaway, who is known for killing her husbands, debuted, according to blog websites.

Irvine also shared that the candelabra the bride holds is identical to the one shown in the hall scene earlier in the ride. This change now implies the bride is wandering across the mansion. The same candelabra will also appear in a cemetery scene during the ride’s finale.

Irvine anticipates that some Disney fans, many of whom are superfans of the attraction, won’t like the changes but explains to the publication that the change was necessary.

“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 head, 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 changes aren’t complete at the mansion either. During the attraction’s closure, some fans speculated that the hanging corpse in the stretching room would be removed. Irvine noted that such a change is possible.

“We’re still looking at that,” Irvine said. “That one is complicated, structurally … One thing at a time.”

“Foolish mortals” will be able to see the new bride In the ride when it reopens on Jan. 18 after a nearly year-long closure.