Casper - 1995

A nice movie, I like it. I liked it then and I like it now, for what it is. Meaning it’s a kids movie, yes, but it’s very nice, and Christina Ricci was good and cute, and the ghosts were made well enough that they’re nice even after all these years.

In a way I think it’s a bit underestimated …

When a rich man dies, he leaves all his money to various animal charities, and to his insufferable daughter Carrigan he leaves the old haunted house.

She goes there, but sees small ghost Casper who feels so lonely and dreams of having a friend, but the other ghosts of the house scare everyone away.

Carrigan tries with exorcism, with the Ghostbuster :lol: and even tries a demolitions team, but the ghosts drive the workers away.

Casper watches tv and hears about Dr James Harvey, a shrink for ghosts, and he travels through the electric cables to Carrigan to show her the news so that she’d hire him. 

Carrigan does hire Harvey, so he comes to stay in the house with his teenage daughter Kat. Apparently he has done this before, convince some ghost to move on, and yet the first time he sees Casper he yells, then the other three ghosts arrive, and they’re a real menace, so he has to fight them and vacuum them. They’re Casper’s uncles and treated him almost as badly as they do everyone else.

Once over the first initial shock, Kat talks with Casper and they like each other, then she shouts at the three uncles that mistreated Casper. Dad instead wants to have the three ghosts in therapy. 

When Kat’s new classmates hear where she lives, they want to do the halloween ball at her house.

The rich girl Amber has her friend/boyfriend ask Kat to the ball, and Casper is a bit jealous, he’d like to go with her, and he flies her to a lighthouse to talk about their past. He remembers nothing about his past, so Kat finds his old stuff back so that he remembers everything, of how he got sick and died but stayed here so his father wouldn’t be alone, and also his father inventing things and his invention called Lazarus to bring him back to life. Casper enters the machine, but Carrigan takes away the phial that should make it work. She plans to kill her friend Dibs, so that as a ghost he might walk through walls and search for the treasure hidden in that house, so that later she might bring him back to life… of course he does not like the idea at all, and she’s the one that ends up dead in her attempt to kill him, and she does come back as a ghost

Dr Harvey has become fond of the three ghosts, but he gets drunk one night and kind of falls to his death. 

She finds the treasure (that will later be revealed as a ball signed by a baseball player) but her friend has no intention of bringing her back, so she kills him. Kat and Casper trick Carrigan into admitting that she has no unfinished business anymore, and when she does she can’t stay a ghost anymore and moves on the afterlife.

Casper enters the machine, but then Kat’s father comes back as a ghost, having fun with the three ghosts and not really remembering her. She makes him remember and cries, and so Casper uses the machine for him. It does work, and Kat’s father comes back to her. 

All her classmates came and the party started even if she was not yet present, being otherwise busy. 

Amber and friend wanted to scare everyone dressed as one big ghost, but instead are scared to bits by the three uncles and run away.

Kat’s mother Amelia comes to Casper as an angel and makes him corporeal for one evening until 10pm since he is only 12, so he can go to the party and dance with Kat. They dance floating on air, and when she realises who he is, she hugs him tight. 

Amelia comes to say goodbye to James, telling him she has no unfinished business and she’ll always watch over them.

10pm comes way too early (did they dance just once?) then Casper kisses her and turns back into a ghost mid-kiss (she has become used to how chillingly cold he is). All the others scream and flee after seeing the ghost, but Kat keeps having fun with her four ghosts and her dad.

Special effects by the Industrial Light and Magic. It was really good, it is nice to watch even now.

Kat - Christina Ricci

James - Bill Pullman

Carrigan - Cathy Moriarty

Dibs - Eric Idle

Casper (voice) - Malachi Pearson

Casper on screen - Devon Sawa

An adorable cameo by Dan Ackroyd as a ghostbuster who runs away after his encounter with these ghosts and tells them Who ya gonna call? Someone else…

Also really small cameos by Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson, when James face changes because the three ghosts have entered him - there’s also a third face but I didn’t recognise him.