4K Blu-ray Review: Casper

The Film

One way to know you're getting old is when films you saw in theaters on the original run start to get 30th anniversary releases. I was 6 when Casper came out, and I still vividly remember heading to the Elgin Mills theater in Toronto for the opening night. This was the mid-90s, a golden age for big family films like Jurassic Park and Jumanji, where Hollywood was just getting to grips on new technology at the dawn of modern CGI.

Since then, I haven't seen Casper in three decades. Revisiting it now is tinged with nostalgia. It's not a great film – often it's not really a good one, either – but it's harmless, cute, and often quite charming. It's the kind of feel-good entertainment you can rely on, and that's not nothing.

Directed by Brad Silberling, who was just 30 at the time, Casper is a surprisingly traditional mix of coming-of-age films and romcoms, buried under the effects-heavy ghost story that demands the most attention. Silberling went onto direct the underappreciated Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, another family film with a darker edge, and you can already pick up on his strengths as a director of children in big CGI spectacles.

At the heart of the story are James (Bill Pullman) and his daugher, Kat (Christina Ricci), two lost souls making their way after the tragic death of James' wife and Kat's mom. James has buried himself in his work as a paranormal therapist, hoping that one day he can reach his wife in the beyond. Kat, more grounded and still deeply troubled by the loss, is ashamed of her father's legacy.

The duo move into an ancient family estate owned by the spoiled Catherine Crittenden (Cathy Moriarty) who, with the help of her skeezy lawyer, Paul (Eric Idle), hopes to find the hidden treasure left behind by her estranged father. Desperate for an answer, she hopes James will be able to contact his ghost and solve the mystery once and for all.

Only thing is, ghosts aren't just real, but extremely pissed off their peace in the mansion has been disturbed. At least, all of them but Casper (Malachi Pearson), the phantom of a 12-year-old boy who died of pneumonia a century earlier.

From there, Casper hits most familiar beats of every family movie, including some sentimental yet endearing bits involving saying goodbye and holding onto that which is precious in the moment. It's not subtle nor graceful, but it is earnest.

It's also riddled with cameos and pop-culture references, as you could expect from a Dreamworks production of this era. Steven Spielberg produces, which helps bring in a bunch of friends and colleagues to the mix, including cameos from Dan Aykroyd as a Ghostbuster too scared to handle the task at hand.

For those looking for a feel-good classic, Casper is just the ticket. It's not going to win any awards even in retrospect, but there's a reason it has endured for 30 years in the hearts and minds of two generations.

Video

The 4K version is a noticeable improvement over the original Blu-ray, which was barely a step up from the DVD back in its day. Casper was shot on film with a digital intermediary for the visual effects. As a result, some of the ghost shots look soft and have a fuzziness to them that is simply a product of the process.

Luckily, the HDR10 and Dolby Vision additions are greatly appreciated, notching up the blacks and highlights beautifully in every scene. A lot of this film takes place at night, with a lot of studio lighting and heavy uses of color to indicate supernatural action, and the 4K really comes into its own here. Every single set piece looks gorgeous, especially when viewed on a TV that can get bright enough to warrant the HDR treatment.

Audio

The new Dolby Atmos mix is punchy and vibrant, with an emphasis on the catchy James Horner score. Dialog comes in relatively clean, though I noticed odd mixing issues in some sequences, where it felt like background yelps or quips would get lost in the cacophony. It's nothing too problematic, but it was there enough times to make note of it.

Otherwise, this is a terrific improvement in every way over previous editions, and easily the best Casper has ever sounded. If you really want to get a good demo out of it, check out the big end sequence, where Casper and Kat confront the bad buys in the secret laboratory. This entire section of the film has some of the finest examples of point audio, with electricity buzzing, ghosts flying, people screaming, and wind howling. It's wonderfully explosive all around.

Extras

The extras are fine, but nothing out of the ordinary. Most are imports from the older legacy disc, including the making of footage, feature commentary, and deleted scene.

The commentary by director Brad Silberging is engaging and fun, revealing some of the early difficulties in making an effects-heavy production like this. You won't find anything too revealing here, but it's a solid enough chat from a time studios still put an effort into including these.

New on the disc are original theatrical shorts from the 1950s, which have aged, well, not gracefully. They've still got the occasional funny slapstick moment, but they're very much a product of their time and a far cry away from the quality of Looney Tunes and the like.

Overall, the extras exist and they're mostly OK. The making of is a fascinating glimpse into how these were put together for old releases, and, like the film itself, is a wonderful trip down memory lane.

Overall

Casper is a delight that has aged mostly well. While I was always a Beetlejuice kid – and Casper feels a lot like the PG version of Burton's anarchic classic – there's still a lot to love in something as earnest and wholesome as Silberling's film. They don't make them like they used to, and what a shame that is.