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This villain was proposed but was rejected by the community for not being heinous enough or lacks what is necessary to be a Pure Evil villain. Therefore, this villain shall be added to our "Never Again List", where proposed villains rejected by the community shall be placed to prevent future proposals of the same evil-doer. They can be proposed again (with the permission of an administrator) if new elements appear in their series that can change their status as non-PE villains.
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NOTE: This article is about the 2023 version for the attraction's version see: Hatbox Ghost (Original)
“
You'll be back.
„
~ The Hatbox Ghost's first words and most famous quote.
“
This house is dripping with souls, but there's always room for one more.
In his characterisation, he is one of the several spectral spooks sealed in the Haunted Mansion - a haunted house located in New Orleans, Louisana. He was accidentally summoned by the house's owner, William Gracey in an attempt to contact his deceased wife. He tricked Gracey into committing suicide and took up residence in the Gracey mansion, controlling other spirits that inhabited the house and tricking its residents into committing suicide. Having haunted the building for years, the Hatbox Ghost quickly joins all of the mansion's ghosts in scaring out its newest owners, a single mother called Gabbie and her young son Travis, prompting them to gather a team of ghost exterminators led by Benjamin "Ben" Matthias.
Alistair Crump was considered incredibly petty in life, having disdain for everyone. Such examples of this involved how he would forbid having chairs in the foyer of his mansion, as he didn't like the idea of people being seated when he entered the room. He had all the chairs in the dining room shortened, while piling pillows onto his own, so he could be the tallest person in the room. He also demonstrated womanizer and misogynistic qualities, when his second wife found out about his third wife, then-mistress, when he put a portrait of her in their living room, and insulted her for being able to read it.
As the Hatbox Ghost, Alistair was also very manipulative, and would prey on those suffering grief, using this to manipulate their pain to get them to commit suicide under the guise of their deceased loved one.
History[]
Past[]
Alistair Crump was born to Addison Crump, a wealthy, albeit cruel and overbearing Louisiana socialite and his good-natured wife in the 1800s. The family owned Crump Manor, a large Dutch gothic revival home in Louisiana. At the age of nine, Alistair's mother died, and his father disowned him for crying too much at her funeral. 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, soon became a renowned wealthy tycoon.
Later, Alistair returned to Louisiana wherein he 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 Addison against him, ending each one in a murder spree and burying them underneath the mansion with mocking effigys on their headstones. Eventually, his own horrified staff—who he abused often—caught up to him and beheaded him, but not before he vowed vengeance from beyond the grave. They then left his head to rot underneath his top hat in the same place he buried his victims.
At this point, he became the Hatbox Ghost.
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. The pair ended up holding a seance every day for an entire year, which 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 of the Hatbox Ghost, to be brought back. Alastair 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 and wreak havoc on the living world. 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 get them to surrender their soul, in hopes of one day being free to use his dark magic on the world of the living without constraint. 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.
Crump continued to torment the new owners of the mansion, a widowed doctor and her son, after they moved in, as well as the people they sought help from: a clergyman, astrophysicist, medium, and professor. With help from Madame Leota, they were able to identify him.
During a fight in the graveyard, Ben gathers the courage to overcome his grief of losing his wife, and with the combined forces of the ghosts, he resists Crump's offer, causing him to return to the afterlife—this time for good.
Trivia[]
In the original The Haunted Mansion mythos, the Hatbox Ghost's real name was Randall Pace. In this film, the Hatbox Ghost's name is Alistair Crump instead.
The character's backstory somewhat mirrors the Beast Prince in the 2017 live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. Both the Hatbox Ghost and the Prince faced abuse and underwent bad upbringings from their fathers, following the death of their mothers.
The Hatbox Ghost's major role in the film seems to be a leftover from the project's early drafts by Guillermo del Toro, who was slated to direct and write the film back when a second film based on The Haunted Mansion was announced in July 2010. Though del Toro later departed the project, Disney was noted to really like his drafts and some of del Toro's concepts may have been kept in the finished product, so in that case, maybe the Hatbox Ghost was one of the elements Justin Simien kept due to liking them.
The exterior of Crump Manor, visited later in the film, is based on the design of the mansion at Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland. This was to make up for the titular mansion being based entirely on the Disneyland version.
The Hatbox Ghost is the second main antagonist from a film based on Disney’s theme park attraction The Haunted Mansion. The first one was Ramsley, who appeared in the 2003 eponymous film starring Eddie Murphy.
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