Casper (movie)
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Casper is a 1995 live-action film based on the Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons and comic strips and made extensive use of computer-generated imagery, including a fully computer-rendered title character, the first in a live action movie. Though secondary computer-animated characters had appeared in films before (such as Dino in The Flintstones), but none had a prominent role.
This film was followed by direct-to-video sequels such as Casper: A Spirited Beginning and Casper Meets Wendy.
Plot
Carrigan Crittenden (Cathy Moriarty) inherits an old house from her late father. When she discovers the house has a treasure hidden in it, she and her lackey Dibbs (Eric Idle) try to enter the house and find it, but discover the house is haunted.
To get rid of the ghosts, Crittenden hires Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman), an "afterlife therapist," to help the ghosts come to terms with their unfinished business and cross over. Dr. Harvey's goal with this occupation is to find the ghost of his late wife and communicate with her. Casper, the ghost of twelve year old boy, develops a crush on Dr. Harvey's teenage daughter Kat (Christina Ricci.)
Kat and Casper do develop a kind of relationship and find out that Casper's father, a great inventor had built a machine that can bring ghosts back to life -- the Lazarus (named for Lazarus in the New Testament, whom Jesus brough back to life.)When Casper's uncles, the more beastly ghosts, grow to like Dr. Harvey they take him to bar.
Taking advantage of the ghosts being out of the house, Crittenden and Dibbs follow Kat and Casper to the laboratory built by Casper's father, which contain the Lazarus and the vault to the treasure. Before Casper can be brought back to life, they steal the essential ingredient, realizing that if one of them were to die, they could go through the vault door, get the treasure out and come back to life.
After attempting to kill each other (they couldn't decide who would die), Crittenden falls off a cliff and comes back as a ghost and steals the treasure before Kat and Casper's eyes. However, Dibbs turns on her and she flings him out a window. When Kat and Casper point that since Crittenden is now a ghost she should have unfinished business, she declares she has no unfinished business and accidently causes herself to cross over. The treasure chest falls in the floor and opens, revealing the treasure was an autographed baseball.
Meanwhile, Dr. Harvey falls into an open sewar and dies, becoming a ghost. While Casper's uncles are pleased with this, Casper realizes he must be brought back to life, thereby making it so Casper must remain a ghost.
Kat's mother (Amy Brenneman) appears to her husband and Casper, revealing that she had not become a ghost, but an angel, since she had no unfinished business. She allows Casper to become alive again until ten for Kat's Halloween party. He turns back into a ghost just when he and Kat kiss, freaking out all other kids and causing them to run wildly out of the mansion.
Trivia
- Dr. Harvey and Kat's surname is a reference to Harvey Comics, which created Casper the Friendly Ghost.