31 Days of Halloween Movies: Day 4

When I was a little girl, I loved to watch the Casper cartoons. I would sing the "Casper the friendly ghost" song all the way to school and back. I loved the idea of a friendly ghost, and I had great empathy for his inability to make friends as I had experienced the same loneliness. You see, I was a rather shy child and often mistaken for being stuck up.

I fell in love with As an adult, I fell in love with Casper all over again when, in 1995, I was introduced to the movie version. In this version, Casper lives with three uncles who enjoy scaring the pants of humans. Lonely, Casper finds a way to bring a ghost hunter, and his young daughter, into his home in the hopes of making friends with the daughter.

The story evolves as we discover the ghost hunter, a paranormalist, has never met a real ghost but had hoped to do so in an attempt to communicate with his recently deceased wife.

When he finally meets a real ghost, however, he freaks. Eventually he comes around and embrasses the experience.

His daughter, Cat, is tired of moving from town to town and being an outsider, but soon discovers living in a haunted house can have its advantages.

Casper, thrilled to finally have a friend, tells Cat all about his death and the loss of his family--and how he came to live with his three uncles. Casper and Cat become quickly become great friends, thus ending the loneliness both of them have felt.

The story progresses from there. In the end, Casper gets to become a real boy, for just one dance, and asks Cat, "Can I keep you?" (Too precious!)

There is some subtle, but very obvious offensive language, so if you don't like your kids hearing the "b" word, you may not want them to watch the film.

I, however, realized long ago that kids hear these words in school every day so I tried to teach my kids that just because you hear the words doesn't mean you need to repeat them--and therefore, had no problem letting my children watch the film when they were younger. In fact, they never even paid much attention to the words. They, personally, just loved the storyline, making this one of their favorite children's Halloween films.

Order Casper today.