Revisiting these 90s films, there are some that are considered classics but didn’t do much for me at the time. Then there are films like Casper. When it came out, I was already at the upper end of its target age range — especially by the time it reached the video store.
Full disclosure: I’m putting this one down as a VHS rental, but we were entering the era of Sky TV, and for the life of me I can’t remember whether this came from Barry’s shelves or from Sky. Possibly both. I digress partly because memories aren’t always clear. The Eleventh Doctor once said, “Everything has to end sometime, otherwise nothing would ever get started.” Another Barry’s memory springs to mind — but that can wait until next time.
At the time, I’d never have admitted I had a soft spot for this film. It appeared in these blogs during the original Spaceman run, and I made the dig about Casper dressing Kat as his mother. We — well, judging by the reader numbers, I — had a lot of fun taking the plot out of context.
Lonely teenager Kat (Christina Ricci) and grieving dad Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman) move into a haunted house to study/exorcise the ghosts living there.
What really stood out to me was how Ricci plays Kat. This isn’t like her more famous 90s role as Wednesday. It’s not even comparable to other heroes of those 80s/90s family films like Lydia in Beetlejuice. Those characters are outcasts largely by choice. Kat wants to be normal. She has a tough exterior, but she’s also grieving her mother. The character carries this unmistakable sadness.
In predictable 90s‑kids‑film fashion, Kat befriends Casper the Friendly Ghost, and in the finale both she and Dr. Harvey find closure. Dr. Harvey decides to turn his attention to his living daughter rather than living in grief for his wife — with his wife’s blessing. That moment!
What we really have here is a kids’ film that manages to deal with some heavy themes while still being a lot of fun. It features the first CGI main character, yet somehow still has one foot in the kids’ movies that came before it — particularly the 80s and early‑90s Ghostbusters and Addams Family. There’s even a Ghostbusters callback that I really enjoyed. Cameos weren’t common then. Or I hadn’t noticed.
Time to take the rental back, and I’ll share my last Barry’s memory next time. Of course, it’s not the only time we’ll go there. Time is not linear, after all. As I take the tape back, I glance behind me at the row of VHS behind the family films — where a full shelf is dedicated to a very scary‑looking monster wearing a hat and knives for fingers.
Barry can’t rent me those. But our friends down the road have Sky Movies.
Until next time.