MOVIE MUSIC UK

THROWBACK THIRTY

Original Review by Jonathan Broxton

Casper is a family-friendly fantasy comedy film based on the ‘Casper the Friendly Ghost’ character created by Joe Oriolo and Seymour Reit, originally popularized in mid-20th century cartoons and comic books. Directed by Brad Silberling (in his directorial debut) and starring Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman, and Cathy Moriarty, the film is centered around a kind and lonely spirit who lives in an old mansion in Maine called Whipstaff Manor. Greedy heiress Carrigan Crittenden inherits the manor from her late father and, hoping to find a rumored treasure hidden inside, she and her assistant Dibs try to get rid of its supernatural inhabitants – Casper and his three mischievous uncles Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso. When they are unable to evict the ghosts, Carrigan hires Dr. James Harvey, a therapist who specializes in paranormal psychology and helping ghosts “move on.” He arrives with his teenage daughter, Kat, but instead of exorcising the house Kat and Casper grow close, and Casper begins to remember details about his life and death – which leads to them deciding to get rid of Carrigan and Dibs instead.

The film combines live-action with then-pioneering computer-generated imagery, especially for the ghost characters, and despite some clunky gross-out comedy scenes for the kids involving the ‘ghostly trio’ of uncles, it contains some surprisingly emotional and dark themes about death, loss, and the afterlife. The film was a commercial success, earning $288 million at the US box office, and spawned two direct-to-video indirect prequels, Casper: A Spirited Beginning in 1997, and Casper Meets Wendy in 1998, but has not shown a great deal of longevity since.

James Horner was, in mid-1995, in the middle of what I consider to be the highlight stretch of his entire career, and which was more-or-less responsible for me becoming interested in film music to the extent that I am. Casper finds itself sandwiched between three of Horner’s all-time great scores (and, for me, three of greatest scores ever written) – Legends of the Fall, Braveheart, and Apollo 13 – and as such one could be forgiven for overlooking Casper, but to do so would be a grave oversight (*pun intended). Horner was always right on point when delivering depth to what would otherwise appear to be simple children’s films – I’m looking at you, An American Tail and The Land Before Time – and Casper is another perfect blend of childlike wonder, melancholy, and lighthearted mischief, and contains one of his all-time greatest emotional themes.

The opening cue, “No Sign Of Ghosts,” actually introduces three of the score’s main thematic ideas. The first is a lumbering and haughty march led by saxophones and harpsichords for the villains Carrigan and Dibs, which owes a great tonal debt to Nino Rota’s music for numerous Federico Fellini films, notably Amarcord, and also has some mischievously creepy and playful textures for dancing woodwinds that keeps it just the right side of spooky. Horner has drawn from this musical well before, notably on earlier scores like Honey I Shrunk the Kids, but the end result is always splendid. The second theme, which kicks in at the 1:40 mark, is a warmer Americana-inflected theme for Kat and her father which features some pretty writing for strings flavored with harmonica textures that recall earlier scores like Something Wicked This Way Comes and The Journey of Natty Gann. The third theme is the astonishing theme for Casper himself, which is first heard on a romantic solo piano at the 2:12 mark, before slowly melting into the full orchestra; more on that later.

The Carrigan and Dibs theme, and the Harvey family theme, are playfully explored in the rest of the cue, and in several subsequent cues, often in conjunction with a zany musical identity for the ‘ghostly trio’ of uncles, which leads into some quite excellent knockabout action music that at times appears to be an anarchic combination of Horner’s cartoonish style and Danny Elfman’s music for Tim Burton. It’s all great fun; in “Carrigan and Dibs” and the brilliantly raucous “First Haunting” Horner has a ball putting their theme through its paces. He occasionally blends it with a sampled theremin and some horror movie stingers to really enhance the ‘haunted house’ vibe, before really amping up the volume and the musical flamboyance in the centerpiece “March of the Exorcists”.

The jazzy idea for the Ghostly Trio is heard prominently during the opening moments of “Strangers in the House,” while the Americana Harvey family theme gets a gorgeous rendition during the same cue’s finale, and then later in conjunction with Casper’s theme in both “Casper & Kat” and “Fond Memories”.

The action music – of which there is quite a bit – is lighter and more ‘mickey mousey’ than one usually heard from Horner, but one thing that stands out here above everything else is the depth and sophistication of the orchestrations. The first action moments come during the enormous brassy Korngold-style swashbuckling flamboyance of “The Swordfight” – a style we had not heard from Horner since the brilliant ‘South Seas Send Up’ scene from The Rocketeer, or the chase sequences from Willow – and then continues in the wild and raucous “Dying to be a Ghost,” which at times reminds me of his equally raucous action music from We’re Back: A Dinosaur’s Story. There is so much energy and creativity in this music, so many different settings of the score’s thematic ideas, it’s endlessly entertaining – I especially love the dramatic classical cello rendition of the Carrigan and Dibs theme at the 1:25 mark, and the trademark rumbling Horner piano chords around 5:00.

However, the undoubted star of the show is the theme for Casper, which is much more emotionally powerful and deeply moving than a theme for an animated ghost has any right to be. The theme actually has two parts – an A-Phrase usually led by a piano with orchestra, and then a B-Phrase that often includes a choir – and Horner often explores both elements separately to elicit different emotional responses. Horner hints at it throughout a lot of the early part of the score; the rendition in “The Lighthouse” has a lovely intimate music box sound, the version in “Casper Makes Breakfast” sees some tonal bleed-through from the Ghostly Trio theme, and then in “Fond Memories” Horner merges the theme with a secondary motif that recalls parts of his score for The Land Before Time – an appropriate reference considering that at this point the film is exploring poignant emotional touchstones related to familial loss, similar to the loss that Littlefoot endures in that previous film.

The emotional pinnacle of the theme comes in the utterly wonderful “Casper’s Lullaby,” which to this day remains one of Horner’s most emotionally resonant and heartbreaking themes; it’s beautiful and sad and uplifting all at the same time, and by way of comparison carries the same emotional weight and crystalline delicacy as Danny Elfman’s Edward Scissorhands. Horner’s use of a soft children’s choir to support the orchestra is sublime, the deftness and delicacy of the piano performance is gorgeous, the regular focus on oboes adds yet another level of tenderness and pathos, and then the conclusion – where Horner combines orchestra, piano, and choir together – is the perfect culmination of the idea. Horner would later use elements of the Casper theme in his score for The Spiderwick Chronicles in 2008, but this original setting remains the best. The way that Horner could capture a tone with his music so easily, to make his audience feel deep emotions almost in spite of themselves, is what made him such a special composer, and why his music touches me so deeply to this day.

“Descent to Lazarus” is the score’s big set-piece action finale, in which Casper, Kat, Dr. Harvey, Carrigan, and Dibs, all descend into Whipstaff Manor’s hidden basement, where Casper’s father built a machine – the Lazarus – which he claimed could bring the dead back to life. It’s very much a continuation of the musical style from “Dying to be a Ghost,” albeit with the energy levels turned up to eleven, and features numerous renditions of all four main themes, often in action mode, as well as some absolutely tremendous explosions of brass-led majesty in the finale that are hugely satisfying. The regular tick-tock rhythms, rambling piano lines, and use of sleigh bells and tambourines in the percussion section gives the cue an appropriately mechanical sound, while some of the fulsome orchestral crescendos again recall the dark circus atmosphere from earlier scores like Something Wicked This Way Comes.

The lovely “One Last Wish” offers another outstanding reprise of Casper’s theme, this time with a noticeably elegant sweep and a sense of dramatic finality, and then in “The Uncles Swing/End Credits” Horner provides some more of that terrific Billy May-style big band swing from scores like Cocoon and Batteries Not Included, before the end title piece reprises several of the score’s main themes, including a notably excellent statement of the Harvey family Americana theme.

The original 1995 album also includes two original songs; the maudlin “Remember Me This Way” written by David Foster and Linda Thompson and performed by Jordan Hill, and a new version of Hal David and Jerry Livingston’s song “Casper the Friendly Ghost” performed by Little Richard. The song first appeared in the 1959 short film “Casper’s Animated Adventures,” and is historically identified with the character, so its inclusion here makes sense, but it is so tonally opposite to what Horner was doing that it is quite jarring in context.

In 2020, to coincide with the film’s 25th anniversary, La-La Land Records and producers Mike Matessino and Neil S. Bulk released a 3,000 unit limited edition remastered and expanded album, featuring outstanding liner notes by writer Jeff Bond. The highlight cues of the expanded release include the film version of “Kids With A Camera,” which interpolates the song melody into some ghostly choral atmospherics, the unexpected burst of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” and the gorgeous additional statements of Casper’s theme in “Fatso as Amelia” and especially the heartbreakingly beautiful “Casper Gets His Wish.” This latter cue underscores the scene where the friendly ghost magically (but, sadly, briefly) transforms back into his human form courtesy of the Lazarus machine.

Despite the film fading somewhat into obscurity in the intervening three decades, James Horner’s score for Casper remains one of his most popular efforts among film music aficionados, and considering that it was competing for attention with the likes of Legends of the Fall, Braveheart, and Apollo 13 at the time, that is no mean feat. While all the themes are excellent, while it has some outstandingly jazzy and comedic sequences for the villains and the mischievous ghosts, and while it occasionally employs some terrific action music, the heart and soul of the score is Casper’s lullaby, and that theme alone makes the score an essential part of any Horner fan’s collection.

Buy the Casper soundtrack from the Movie Music UK Store

Track Listing:

• ORIGINAL 1995 ALBUM
• No Sign Of Ghosts (7:31)
• Carrigan and Dibs (2:40)
• Strangers in the House (2:36)
• First Haunting / The Swordfight (5:01)
• March of the Exorcists (2:45)
• The Lighthouse/Casper and Kat (4:57)
• Casper Makes Breakfast (3:42)
• Fond Memories (3:39)
• Dying to be a Ghost (7:02)
• Casper’s Lullaby (5:40)
• Descent to Lazarus (10:20)
• One Last Wish (4:19)
• Remember Me This Way (written by David Foster and Linda Thompson, performed by Jordan Hill) (4:28)
• Casper the Friendly Ghost (written by Mack David and Jerry Livingston, performed by Little Richard) (2:11)
• The Uncles Swing/End Credits (6:21)

• EXPANDED 2020 ALBUM
• Kids With A Camera (1:49)
• Carrigan & Dibs (2:40)
• March of the Exorcists (2:44)
• On To Whipstaff (2:22)
• No Sign Of Ghosts (7:31)
• First Haunting/The Swordfight (Film Version) (5:22)
• Casper Makes Breakfast (3:43)
• Ride of the Valkyries/Ghost Melt (written by Richard Wagner) (0:31)
• Kat Walks To School (0:55)
• Fatso As Amelia (1:27)
• The Doctor Is In (1:54)
• The Lighthouse – Casper & Kat (4:57)
• Costume For Kat (1:39)
• Kat In The Attic/Fond Memories (2:26)
• Descent To Lazarus (10:19)
• Dying To Be A Ghost (Film Version) (3:05)
• Carrigan Crosses Over (2:32)
• Dad Returns (3:15)
• Casper Gets His Wish (2:01)
• One Last Wish (4:19)
• The Uncles Swing/End Credits (6:23)
  Kids With A Camera (Film Version) (1:48)
• Casper the Friendly Ghost – Score Segments (written by Mack David and Jerry Livingston, arr. James Horner) (1:12)
• Teaser (1:08)
• No Sign Of Ghosts (7:31) – Original Album Release
• Carrigan and Dibs (2:40) – Original Album Release
• Strangers in the House (2:36) – Original Album Release
• First Haunting / The Swordfight (5:01) – Original Album Release
• March of the Exorcists (2:45) – Original Album Release
• The Lighthouse/Casper and Kat (4:57) – Original Album Release
• Casper Makes Breakfast (3:42) – Original Album Release
• Fond Memories (3:39) – Original Album Release
• Dying to be a Ghost (7:02) – Original Album Release
• Casper’s Lullaby (5:40) – Original Album Release
• Descent to Lazarus (10:20) – Original Album Release
• One Last Wish (4:19) – Original Album Release
• Remember Me This Way (written by David Foster and Linda Thompson, performed by Jordan Hill) (4:28) – Original Album Release
• Casper the Friendly Ghost (written by Mack David and Jerry Livingston, performed by Little Richard) (2:11) – Original Album Release
• The Uncles Swing/End Credits (6:21) – Original Album Release

MCA Soundtracks MCD-11240 (1995) – Original
La-La Land Records LLLCD 1514 (1995/2020) – Expanded

Running Time: 73 minutes 12 seconds – Original
Running Time: 149 minutes 15 seconds – Expanded

Music composed and conducted by James Horner. Orchestrations by Greig McRitchie, Art Kempel, Don Davis and James Horner. Recorded and mixed by Shawn Murphy. Edited by Jim Henrikson and Joe E. Rand. Album produced by James Horner and Shawn Murphy. Expanded album produced by Mike Matessino and Neil S. Bulk.