Casper (1995)
Description
In this episode we talked about the 1995 film Casper, directed by Brad Silberling.
Our email address is stillscaredpodcast@gmail.com and we're on instagram @stillscaredpodcast and twitter @stillscaredpod! Intro music is by Maki Yamazaki, and you can find her music on her bandcamp. Outro music is by Joe Kelly, and you can find their music under the name Wendy Miasma on bandcamp. Artwork is by Letty Wilson, find their work at toadlett.com
Here is a link to the deleted scene from Who Framed Roger Rabbit that we talked about!
The music from the film is 'Casper's Lullaby' composed by James Horner
Transcript
Ren Welcome to Still Scared: Talking Children’s Horror, a podcast about creepy, spooky and disturbing children’s books, films and TV. I’m Ren Wednesday, my co-host is Adam Whybray and today we’re talking about the film Casper from 1995 directed by Brad Silberling. Enjoy!
Ren Good evening, Adam!
Adam Good evening, Ren! It’s been a few weeks how are you doing?
Ren I’m doing alright, I'm being a bit pummelled by the darkness, in a literal sense, now that the clocks have changed and there isn’t much daylight - it gets me every year but I’m sitting here right now in front of my lightbox, as we podcast.
Adam Presumably emotionally and psychologically not physically pummelled by the darkness?
Ren Yes.
Adam Saying ‘literally’ I was imaging some spook-tacular black-caped embodiment of the darkness was giving you a pinch punch, first of the month.
Ren Not quite that literal! And how are you, Adam?
Adam I’m alright, teaching’s been quite exhausting recently. I’ve got a bit cross with the kids, which I don’t feel great about, but they just laugh. I don’t think they’re particularly traumatised by it, to be honest. But nevertheless I like to be a genial teacher.
Animation club’s been going well though, I showed Moomins the other day. It was the episode of the cartoon where Moomin falls in love with a ship’s figurehead because it’s a beautiful women and Snorkmaiden is really jealous so takes it out to sea with Sniff to drown it, and hobgoblin visits who’s been travelling for two hundred years to retrieve some gem that Thingumy and Bob — is that what they’re called? Thingumy and Bob? The little trickster ones.
Ren Which one’s Hobglobin?
Adam He’s just an interstellar Hobglobin, he looks like he’s flown in from Sailor Moon, to be honest. And he asks to have his gem back but Moomin Mama is like, “Well, no, it’s theirs now,” and he says “I’ve searched for 200 years, that’s very disappointing.” So they so, “Oh, do you want some tea?" and he has tea with the moomins.
Ren A less horrific episode, then.
Adam Oh yes, not a children’s horror episode especially. The kids who weren’t playing games on their phones seemed to enjoy it, so that was nice. And today we’re talking about a film from my childhood, the live action Casper from 1995, which I had wrongly assumed it would have also been a film from your childhood!
Ren I mean that’s a reasonable assumption! It came out in 1995, it’s the right time for me to have watched it, but for some reason I didn’t! Which is quite to its detriment because without the sheen of nostalgia it was uh… not great.
Adam Ah yes, this was quite a cosy watch for me. But I will note that this is not the first film directed by Brad Silberling that we’ve both reviewed! City of Angels, the Nicholas Cage vehicle from 1998, which I hope you remember we reviewed for our old blog Cage Wisdom!
Ren Yes! I don’t know if we’ve ever mentioned that on the podcast, that we used to have this blog reviewing Nicholas Cage films.
Adam If anyone really enjoys our patter and wants more of our stuff, it is still online, if you look up ‘Cage wisdom Nic Cage Wordpress’ where we ambitiously tried to review every Nicholas Cage film but he went into a bit of a slump in the 2010s where he was just making vigilante films and I think we both lost interest.
Ren We did talk about some bad movies!
Adam Well, the one you watched that I never did was that Boy in Blue film, about the invention of the rowing machine.
Ren It was about the invention of the sliding seat!
Adam Oh, so more specific than the rowing machine!
Ren More specific than the rowing machine. It was actual rowing, but it was about the seat that slides back and forth to facilitate your rowing, which as you will agree is an historical moment ripe for commemoration in film.
AdamCage is back on top now though, I don’t know if you’ve been to the cinema to see Dream Scenario?
Ren No, but wasn’t he also in Dracula?
Adam Oh, in Renfield. He played Dracula in Renfield. So he’s out of the straight to DVD grey/turqiouse action films he was stuck in for a while, so that’s nice. So this is a film directed by Brad Silberling and this is the first film, according to Wikipedia to star a CGI character in the lead role! Casper gets more to do than JarJar Binks ever did.
Ren Yeah, I mean, yep, he’s… there!
Adam I don’t think you’re necessarily appreciating how historic this film is! It’s produced by Universal, and quite unsurprisingly a Steven Spielberg executive produced film.
Ren I guess to put this context of mixed animation and live action, 1995 is quite a long time ago.
Adam It’s not quite Who Framed Roger Rabbit in terms of ‘look at that’ spectacle, I will admit, but it’s pretty well integrated. Our lead performers in terms of the flesh performers, the flesh bags, are Christina Ricci and Bill Pullman and both of them would have done a lot of acting to mannequins or faces drawn on paper plates or whatever, and I think they both do a pretty fine job.
Ren Yeah, they did. Always glad to see Christina Ricci. Obviously, well, obviously to me, I’ve been watching Yellowjackets when that’s been coming out recently, and she’s great in that.
Adam And this wold be just off the back of Adams Family so it makes sense to cast her in this. This film, it’s interesting as to whether it’s a horror film or not, because Casper was already a character from the cartoon, Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Ren And the comics!
Adam Yeah, does he belong to the Archie universe? Because they have an Archie look to them.
Ren I think it’s Harvey comics?
Adam Woody Woodpecker as well…
Ren I think you’re right, that is the same family. Richie Rich, that’s right. Because Casper is the dead version of Richie Rich.
Adam I mean, he’s not really? Or I guess in the film he kind of is! In the comic he was born a ghost, he was always a ghost.
Ren “Born a ghost”
Adam In the comic he is just of the species of ghost and he doesn’t have the melancholia because he was always a ghost, being a ghost is his bread and butter. But in the film he is the ghost of a dead rich child.
Ren And it’s like, Ghost Pinoccio, the plot of this film.
Adam Or maybe closer to Ghost AI with the increased uncanny charge that the film has. So he’s Casper the friendly ghost, and obviously the film gets some mileage out of the fact that he’s ‘Casper the inadvertently terrifying ghost’, so the film starts with these two prepubescent lads exploring this seemingly abandoned mansion. And I will say that the set design and the art direction of this film, it’s got that going for it!
Ren Yeah, I did really enjoy the effort they put into the set design of the haunted mansion, it’s kind of Gaudi-like —
Adam — Tim Burton does Gaudi —
Ren — Curvaceous —
Adam — Lovely stained glass, a freaky-toothed fish creature at the bottom of the bannister.
Ren Oh yeah, I didn’t make very many notes of this film, but one of them is ‘fish bannister.’ It was a good bannister.
Adam Great bannister. Casper spends his time mooning about the mansion I guess and acting as a servant to his three uncles, Stinky, Stretchy and Fatso, I believe. They’re simply defined characters, I think it’s fair to say.
Ren Mm-hmm.
Adam And it starts with these two boys going in and seeing Casper and getting terrified, but Casper of course is the ‘inadvertently terrifying ghost’ and he only wants to be friends. But then we’re introduced to the antagonist of the film?
Ren Yep, that’s Carrigan, played by Cathy Moriarty, which I guess is an appropriate name for an antagonist, and her sidekick Dibs played by Eric Idle, but we can come back to Eric Idle.
AdamOkay, we’ll come back to Eric Idle.
Ren She’s being read her father’s will by a lawyer and being very callous and demanding, I think is the vibe, and it turns out all he’s left her is this manor house.
Adam So she goes to visit it and finds out quite quickly that it is in fact haunted by Casper and his e