Jared’s heart leaves his chest before the mansion ever feels dangerous. Marjorie Dempsey tears it out moments after he arrives carrying alcohol, and the scene should snap the film from loose reunion comedy into supernatural panic. Instead, the threat soon recedes, the friends return to arguing, and the house loses whatever chill the murder briefly created.
That uneven emotional rhythm defines Haunted Heist, the feature directorial debut of Lil Rel Howery. Recently released criminal Terrance “T” invites three old friends to a decaying Detroit mansion under the pretense of an Airbnb reunion. His real plan is to steal the Ceremonial Jawbone Dagger, an artifact supposedly worth $20 million. Shari, Ron, and Ellis will each receive a share, assuming they can find it and escape the racist ghosts occupying the property.
The premise promises a contained horror comedy driven by greed, buried resentment, and supernatural rules. Carl Reid’s screenplay spends so long introducing each character’s problems that the robbery barely begins before the haunting interrupts it. Then the haunting pauses for extended arguments. The film keeps reaching toward momentum and pulling its own hand back.
Friends in Freefall
The cast works hardest when the characters stop performing for one another. Shari presents herself as a successful influencer, yet her purchased followers insult her while she sells products such as Bunion Butter. Ellis arrives carrying the posture of a millionaire after losing control of the mortgage company he helped build. Ron insists he wants a lawful life, then begins reconsidering the robbery once he imagines what the money could repair.
T has gathered them for a crime, but he has also gathered four failed versions of adulthood in one room. Tiffany Haddish, Andrew Bachelor, Howery, and Karlous Miller create enough shared irritation to suggest years of friendship. They interrupt each other with the confidence of people who already know every story being told. That familiarity gives several quieter exchanges a bruised warmth, especially once Ellis and Shari’s facades begin slipping.
The same chemistry becomes exhausting when nearly every scene depends on overlapping voices. Arguments stretch past their comic peak, followed by another argument built at the same volume. The movie asks improvisational energy to replace shaped jokes.
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Haddish and Howery occasionally find a sharp reaction or sideways glance, while Miller’s rigid delivery leaves T feeling oddly detached from the group he assembled. What survives is the sense that these people once mattered deeply to one another. The screenplay rarely gives that feeling silence long enough to settle.
Ghosts Without Weight
Alton and Marjorie Dempsey first appear beside a roaring fireplace, still speaking as if emancipation never happened. Their racism gives the friends an immediate human target for their fear, and Brett Gelman commits to Alton’s smug cruelty. Ari Dayan plays Marjorie with a cheerful viciousness that makes Jared’s killing briefly startling.
Repetition drains the pair of menace. Plantation remarks and outdated racial assumptions return with little variation, leaving the ghosts trapped inside the same joke. Their powers remain similarly uncertain. They can lock doors, kill intruders, possess bodies, and vanish whenever the screenplay needs space for another conversation. The mansion never develops the clear geography or rules that make contained horror effective.
Howery occasionally finds visual energy missing from the script. Rapid pans turn a few reactions into punchlines, while the colored lighting during Shari’s séance gives the room a lurid, unstable glow. The spell is meant to summon a powerful dead protector. It produces Ron’s grandmother, Gram Hawkins, who soon joins Alton and Marjorie in a ghostly sexual encounter.
Ron’s horrified comparison to a pornographic version of Roots is designed as the scene’s release. The sequence pushes shock without constructing much tension before it, so embarrassment replaces laughter. Cheap effects and plain production design weaken the supernatural material further. The mansion looks like a location being used for a movie, never a place holding two centuries of malice.
Feeling Arrives Late
The film becomes gentler during its final stretch. Shari’s counterfeit popularity, Ellis’s lost status, Ron’s separation from Joanna, and T’s hidden illness begin to matter once the characters admit how badly their lives have gone. For a few scenes, the dagger feels less important than the shame each friend carried through the front door.
These admissions reveal the movie Haunted Heist might have become. Old friends reunite while pretending they succeeded, then a locked house forces every lie into the open. The supernatural danger could have turned each secret into a choice, asking who would sacrifice money, pride, or safety for someone else.
Instead, the revelations arrive through predictable confessions. The friendship has not been tested through enough meaningful decisions to support the heavy sentiment placed on it. A late emotional turn asks for grief and loyalty after long stretches spent reducing the group to loud archetypes.
The sequel setup creates the same emptiness as the dagger itself. It points toward further mythology without giving this story enough shape to make that future feel desirable. The cast finds several human notes inside the noise, yet the movie keeps drowning them out, one argument and disappearing ghost at a time.
Haunted Heist is a horror comedy film released on July 24, 2026. You can watch the movie in select theaters through Saban Films. Four estranged friends reunite at an Airbnb where one plans a robbery, but supernatural spirits trap them inside.
Where to Watch Haunted Heist (2026) Online
Full Credits
Title: Haunted Heist
Distributor: Saban Films
Release date: July 24, 2026
Rating: R
Running time: 87 minutes
Director: Lil Rel Howery
Writers: Carl Reid
Producers and Executive Producers: Josh Feldman, Jesse Ford, Sean King O’Grady, Carl Reid
Cast: Tiffany Haddish, Brett Gelman, Lil Rel Howery, Andrew Bachelor, Tony Baker, Ari Dayan, Karlous Miller, Stephen Blackwell, LaKeysha Edwards, Donnell J Clayton, Davis Aguila, Devon Hembree, Eric Roman, Tijuan McLittle, Tara Terry, Dereck Shedlowsky
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): James McMillan
Editors: Shane Patrick Ford
The Review
Haunted Heist
Haunted Heist gathers four gifted comedians inside a mansion, then leaves them searching for jokes with the same urgency their characters search for the dagger. The cast occasionally finds warmth in the friends’ shared disappointments, and a few rapid pans or séance images give the chaos a pulse. Those sparks fade inside repetitive bickering, inconsistent ghost rules, and sentiment the story has not prepared us to feel. The movie wants its friendship to matter, yet rarely gives that friendship room to breathe.
PROS
- Convincing group chemistry
- Brief moments of genuine warmth
- Energetic camera pans
- Some committed comic performances
CONS
- Repetitive arguments
- Weak supernatural mythology
- Few effective scares
- Unearned emotional turn
- Cheap-looking effects
