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Live Action Adaptation of Casper The Friendly Ghost from The Nineties. Directed by Brad Silberling (who went on to do the A Series Of Unfortunate Events film) and produced by (who else?) Steven Spielberg. The first feature film ever to have a CGI character in the lead role, beating Toy Story by six months.

Rich Bitch Carrigan Crittenden (Cathy Moriarty) is eager to get her claws on her dear departed dad's fortune, but discovers at the reading of his Will that he... didn't like her very much and only left her a spooky mansion. After finding that the house may contain treasure, she drags her Battle Butler Dibbs (Eric Idle) to the Maine coastline, where they find the building is haunted by Casper and his three uncles. Carrigan eventually hires "ghost therapist" Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman) to get rid of them. He brings along his daughter Kat (a teenage Christina Ricci fresh off The Addams Family films), whose relationship with Casper is most of the movie.

Timing!

Did not do well with the critics, but nevertheless spawned several direct-to-video sequels, an Animated Adaptation, and a bit of a cult following. These "sequels" do not follow the same continuity in any way, shape or form, making it all the more easy for fans of this film to consign them to the Dis Continuity bin.

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Tropes:

• Alliterative Name (Carrigan Crittenden)
• All That Glitters
• Avoid The Dreaded G Rating ("Bitch" is said twice.)
• Boy Meets Ghoul
• Deadpan Snarker (Kat at times)
  • As The Nostalgia Critic puts it, "Is she taking Janeane Garofalo lessons?"
• Died Happily Ever After (Kat's mother)
• Disney Villain Death (except in a movie with ghosts, that's not quite the end of her)
• Evil Laugh (Carrigan, mostly while in ghost form)
• Friend Or Idol Decision
• Four Fingered Hands (Lampshaded)
• Getting Crap Past The Radar: "There's a girl... on my bed... Yes!"
  • There's also a surprisingly funny one in one of the otherwise So Bad Its Horrible sequels. The school principal runs out of the bathroom, pants still down, after being scared by Casper. He runs up to a woman staff member, grabs her and says "I need you!". She looks down at his boxers, screams, and slaps the principal across the face.
• Ghost Amnesia
• Good Smoking Evil Smoking (Carrigan smokes and is definitely evil)
• Greater Need Than Mine
• Haunted Headquarters
• Help Face Turn (Dibbs)
• I'm Cold... So Cold...
• Intercontinuity Cross Over (Father Guido Sarducci and Dr. Ray Stanz briefly show up)
• Insult Backfire:
  Kat: You guys are disgusting, obnoxious creeps!
  Ghostly Trio: Thank you!
• The Libby (Amber)
• Live Action Adaptation
• Logo Joke (the Universal globe turns into the moon)
• Money Dear Boy (The only explanation for the celebrity cameos. Or the long-term presence of Eric Idle.)
• Never Say Die (oh so averted)
• Pinky Swear
• Promise Me You Wont X
• Rich Bitch
• Scaled Up (Carrigan, after she becomes a ghost)
• SORAS - Casper, who in the cartoons seemed to be about seven, is stated to be twelve, presumably so he's closer in age to Kat, who looks to be about thirteen or fourteen. And it doesn't matter how much time has passed since then because as a ghost he can't age at all.
  • His age gets even more confusing at the end of the film, when Casper takes a corporeal human form so he can dance with Kat at her party— the actor playing "alive" Casper is Devon Sawa, who would have been about 16 or 17 at the time of the film's release, and looks even older. Certainly nowhere near 12! Not quite Dawson Casting but a large enough age gap to be visually confusing.
• Steam Punk (Casper's father's secret laboratory)
• Unfinished Business
• When The Clock Strikes Twelve (played with)
• Writers Cannot Do Math (just try to work out what time period Casper lived in)
  • Mainly, the problem is that darn Duke Snider autographed baseball. Duke Snider began his baseball career in the 1940s, but everything else in the film, particularly the art direction, suggests Casper lived sometime around 1900. To add to the confusion, a direct-to-video "prequel" portrayed him becoming a ghost in The Present Day.

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