CASPER (1995)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical*

The animated CASPER cartoons and the line of funnybooks built upon the franchise were the very definition of "kid-vid," focusing on innocent gambols with no sexuality and (at most) G-rated forms of violence. The friendly ghost's live-action debut didn't exactly go to the opposite extreme, but while re-watching if for this review, it struck me as something of a "kindler, gentler BEETLEJUICE."

In this incarnation Casper is definitely the revenant of a dead eight-year-old, though he doesn't remember his old life because typically ghosts dwelling upon the earth lose their memories of their former lives. Along with his three obnoxious "uncles," the mischief-making Ghostly Trio, Casper haunts an abandoned estate, Whipstaff Manor, in the town of Friendship, Maine. Then the owner of the manor passes on, leaving almost all his properties to charities. The owner's nasty daughter Carrigan (Cathy Moriarty) gets the manor, so she and her lawyer Dibs (Eric Idle) want to sell the property as soon as possible. They also acquire a treasure-map suggesting that there may a cache of fabulous wealth in the house. However, all these plans are nullified by the prospect of facing real ghosts in the house.

To exorcise the unwanted spirits, Carrigan summons "paranormal therapist" James Harvey (Bill Pullman) to Friendship, and Harvey is so enthusiastic about the case that he uproots his daughter Kat (Christina Ricci) from their previous residence and moves lock-stock-and-barrel to Friendship, coincidentally just as a new middle-school year begins for Kat. Apart from having her life upset by one of many such moves, Kat doesn't really believe in her father's crazy occupation. She thinks, with some justice, that he became passionate about contacting and soothing spirits after the untimely death of his wife, a.k.a. Kat's mother. 

It's a boon to Casper, though, when Kat and her dad move into Whipstaff, because while this friendly ghost does desire friends in general, what he wants most is a girlfriend, at least on a middle school level of dating. Indeed, when Kat takes up residence in the room Casper normally haunts, he proves himself a bit of a horndog ("A girl in my bed! Yes!") In short order Casper reveals himself to Kat, even as the Ghostly Trio commence playing pranks on Harvey. Though the two humans are initially terrified, they eventually settle down and begin the process of interacting with the restless spirits.

 Kat's big challenge comes with the first day of school, which ends with her accidentally inviting her class to a Halloween party at the manor. As for Harvey, the malicious members of the Trio hint that they're aware of his lost wife Amelia, whom they claim is still in the afterlife as a distinct personality. But are they lying, with the endgame of making Harvey into a ghost like themselves? On top of this, Carrigan and Dibs keep nosing around for the treasure. As a tenth-hour development, Casper suddenly remembers some of the backstory of his mortal life, and part of that life involves his late father having built, in some Whipstaff room, a device capable of bringing the dead back to life. So maybe Casper can reanimate himself into a "real boy," and be something more than an intangible companion to Kat?

I certainly prefer a film-plot to have too many plot-threads over having too few. Nevertheless, even the partial list of plot-lines shown above indicates that the writers stuck too many irons in the fire-- and I didn't even mention the one about two mean middle-schoolers who plan to humiliate Kat at her party. Though Moriarty and Dibs do well with their comical villains, the characters aren't strictly necessary. One corrective: this low-rent Boris and Natasha might have been better used if they had some clue about the magical ghost-restorer device, and they wanted that to sell to an unfriendly nation, instead of some dubious treasure (which turns out to be a big nothing anyway). The FX are enjoyable but director Silberling overplays them so that they distract from the story. During the first encounter of Harvey and the Trio, the three ghosts invade his body by forcing their ectoplasmic bodies down his throat. The viewer rightfully assumes that the pernicious poltergeists are about to possess Harvey and make him do something embarrassing. But all that happens is that he looks in the mirror and sees the reflection of various celebrities, including Clint Eastwood and the Crypt-Keeper.

Speaking of guest-stars, a separate section has two fictional characters run out of the manor after failing to exorcise the spirits: Don Novello playing Father Guido Sarducci and Dan Aykroyd playing Ray Stanz of GHOSTBUSTERS. For reasons I won't get into here, I consider only Stanz to constitute a mini-crossover with the Casper franchise. The two Harveys were named after the publisher of Harvey Comics, who arguably kept the franchise more visible with American kids than did any intermittent animated series. Despite good box office, CASPER received no big-screen follow-ups, only two DTV films in which neither Harvey nor Kat appeared. However, the characters were revived for a 1996 TV cartoon, THE SPOOKTACULAR NEW ADVENTURES OF CASPER. This seems counter-intuitive, since by the end of the first movie, Harvey has been able to commune with his dead wife and Kat has more or less adjusted to her new setting. Indeed, one could argue that most of the plot centers around Casper helping Kat with her problems, and even Casper's recollection of his human life don't make him a rounded character, no matter how "rounded" his visual design.