#trash movie essays by minty

[minty-playhouse]

Casper Meets Wendy: A Review/Essay

Or: How to make a decent Wendy movie and save Josh's character

So, recently I joined a club dedicated to trash movies, kinda like a book club, where we pick a movie and then discuss. The first on the chopping block was Casper Meets Wendy, and for fun and whatnot, I decided to write down my thoughts on it.

I had no clue I was gonna get this angry, frustrated, yet invested (I went into this movie fully blind, aside from the fact that this was Duff's debut movie? at least that's what I was told). Follow the read more for the full thing, 'cause it's gonna get long!

So, the start of this movie? Disorienting.

We land smack dab in the middle of a baseball game, and they show us a climatic win with no set up. nothing. I had no idea how I should feel about it because hm, I don't know anything that's going on here?

Then aliens show up.

Confusion intensifies because not only we are getting witches and ghosts but also aliens???

Then wow, surprise, Casper's ghost uncles were the aliens the entire time.

AND I GOTTA A BONE TO PICK WITH THESE GHOSTS!! Like, I already hated these guys from the OG CG Casper movie, like the OG movie was nothing to write home about already, so really they just made them that much more worse. Not to mention that they are less "ghosts that scare people" and more "absolute assholes who cause harm and havoc whenever they fucking go". Like they invaded a perfectly good baseball game where kids and their families were just having a good time, unwinding at night after like, work and school, made them all panic, caused a goddamn explosion (and honestly at this point these people aren't scared because they are ghosts, they're scared becuase they are shapeshifting assholes who are terrorizing them) and just generally made everyone have a hella traumatic experience.

The only redeemable part of this whole ordeal is the hot dog cart having the word "Hotdogalicious" on the side of it.

And yes, all of the scenes with the ghosts feel like they last 5 million years when they barely reach the 5 minute mark. Get used to it.

Either way, we jump from the ghosts ruining people’s lives to a businessman wizard type character, and lo and behold, I lay my eyes on a beautiful sight: GEORGE HAMILTON!

Now I don’t think I saw a movie go from a zero to a perfect ten this fast! Almost makes it worth it to endure those damn ghosts just to see him (but not really, but I’ll tell you about a version of this movie that COULD be worth your time later on). Heck, I can’t even be that bothered by Pauly Shore’s Shore-ness as the mirror because they’re usually on the same scene together so George balances it out.

He plays Desmond aka a character that’s a bit too good for this movie and also a character that I could 100% see Vincent Price play and have an absolute ball while doing so.

He hears from the mirror that Wendy, the young good witch, is super close to surpassing him in power, and in a move that was waaaaaaaay creepier before it was explained to me later on, Pauly pulls out the entire profile on this like 8 year old complete with her FULL ADDRESS. (it was later revealed that Desmond has a tracker that can detect when other witches use magic and uses that to pinpoint their location, so Shore just pulled from Desmond’s own database, but they could have explained that first and not make him look like a creep who knew every detail about this little girl)

Desmond concocts a potion (with a nice nod to Snow White’s Evil Queen in the process, which I thought was nice because he is also an evil magic user who’s jealous of a younger, better person and has a magic mirror, I see what you did there movie) and I dunno if I wasn’t paying attention, or if the movie just didn’t explain, but at first I thought he was gonna use the potion to like, go to where Wendy was, or maybe just disguise himself like the Snow White queen to knock on her door unsuspectingly…

But no. He just straight up materializes two hitmen so he can send them to this little girl’s house so they can kill her.

Because yes, fuck you.

They also have very MIB-esque guns that do big damage. Remember that.

Anyways, we’re FINALLY introduced to Wendy (played by baby Hillary Duff) and her aunts, whom at first sent some really mixed signals and I thought they just wanted to make Wendy’s life miserable but quickly showed they genuinely cared for her (unlike those damn ghosts with Casper). I’m telling you right now that the witches’ plotline is LEAGUES better than the Casper plotline and the ghosts had ZERO need to exist in this movie (more on this later).

The hitmen knock on their door soon enough, and despite having guns that OBLITARED a door at Desmond’s place, they do litte to no harm to the witches’ house. Not sure what their home is made of but it’s some hella sturdy material.

A very bad fight ensues until Wendy disarms them and puts them in a cell.

And now is time for Wendy to be under witness protection service, so they just go to a resort to lay low for a while.

And goddamit, the ghosts are back! And they’re on the resort too because these plotlines gotta merge at some point and after they ruin the honeymoon – and very possibly the entire foundation of a whole marriage – of a poor couple that just wanted to have a good time, they stay in one of the cabins for a “vacation” and it made me SO ANGRY that they like, asked Casper to carry shit for them for this because what the fuck, these guy never ever use anything they literally just float around and harass people, they just make Casper carry shit because, as previously stated, they’re assholes and just wanna make Casper’s life harder.

And like, OK, cool, they’re like family because they’re his uncles, but why can’t Casper just… not hang out with them? It clearly makes him miserable and he’s just a ghost anyway. It’s not like he’s a real, living kid that needs to be taken care of by a guardian or something. He can just find a nice place to stay and do “nice” hauntings and such. Are they chained by some after-life blood relation? Because unless that’s the case there’s zero reason for Casper to even bother being with them (and they clearly dislike him so it’s not like they would care???)

We’re finally back with the witches and OK, if they needed to lay low and whatnot, why didn’t they magic up their clothes to blend in BEFORE going inside the resort/mingling with the humans? Like they did it later once they realized they were standing out and the fits were kinda nice but they could like, have a scene where they were studying the humans for a second and go “OK, we need to dress more like that!” and then conjure up wacky outfits because they just got a passing glance at tacky vacation clothes so that’s what they’re working with (with Wendy having the more sensible outfits because she actually knows what humans wear).

And then we are introduced to the movie’s biggest wasted potential: Josh.

Josh had EXCELLENT opening lines, and a very cheeky attitude. The whole “How are things?” “Kinda boring… until now!” exchange is very cute and honestly at first I thought they were setting up them being friends/vague crushes because there was a previous scene of Wendy trying to give a gift to this very lame paperboy, so I was like “Ah, the aunts were saving her from the boring, almost dead paperboy so she can hang out with a cool kid, I see…”

But more on Josh later, we’re unfortunately back with the ghosts (after a brief scene with Desmond that shows his tracker and redeems Pauly’s character a bit) and there’s an awful scare scene with a chef so they can get food and

WHY 👏 DO 👏 THEY 👏 NEED 👏 TO 👏 EAT?

I hate everything about them.

Thank God the scene is over and we’re back with the witches, who realize they can’t use magic or Desmond is gonna track them, and honestly every time they talk about Desmond is about how strong he is, and if he’s so strong, why did he like, summon hitmen to do the job for him? Gabby (Shelley’s character) even mentions that if he comes knocking he can turns them into “pumpkin guts” like, what was stopping him from dropping by at their place at the start of the movie and just do it himself?

Back with the dang ghosts, they’re eating, much to my increasing anger, which just escalated even more because LOOK AT THIS!

They were eating stuff like pastries, and grapes and juice what the hell kinda leftovers are these? WHY ARE THERE COCONUT HALVES? Also like there's more food NOW after they ate than before like... I hate every scene with them I wish they didn’t exist.

Then we’re back with Josh and that’d when all my hopes and dreams were crushed because Josh was just an asshole to everyone around him + Wendy and? The reason? Motivation? None. There’s a shoehorned reason that she “messed up his game” and from that point on he’s super dick-ish to her because apparently the plot needed an antagonist besides the all powerful warlock that can turn them to putting and wants to throw Wendy into a magical abyss where she’ll be disintegrated. That wasn’t hardship enough for Wendy she needed a boy to treat her bad so she could, I dunno, fall in love with fucking Casper, who at this point hasn’t done anything besides whine and allow his uncles to keep terrorizing and ruining people’s lives.

I refuse to talk about the Wendy/Casper romance subplot thing once they finally meet (at the 30 minute mark no less) because it boils my blood to epic proportions so we are skipping the dumb montage of them “bonding” because not only I hate it but also because they do like 300 million things and by the end they’re like “Wow, today was great!” like TODAY?? It looked like a couple days passed with all you did what??

Either way, Wendy and Casper are told by their relatives earlier in the movie that ghosts and witches/magic users don’t mingle because ghosts are scared of witches since they can cause harm to them, unlike regular humans, and witches don’t like ghosts because… I actually forgot but honestly, it was just so we could set up two seconds of “tension” in the first meeting between Casper and Wendy. They could very well just be OK with each other because hey, we’re both supernatural beings, cool.

But this feud inspired them to trick their relatives to meet and then maybe see they don’t need to be mortal enemies or whatever. And to do so they tell their aunts/uncles that there’s a dance and hey, maybe you could score a date.

Also the least we talk about Josh trying to force Wendy to go the dance with him the better, all his scenes make me sad and mad. Smad.

Also, color me surprised when the guys who pulled over at the dance who were already acting weird weren’t already possessed by the ghosts/the ghosts in disguise, because I could swear. Specially that damn mirror scene I thought it was to show that they were “in disguise” as humans but they had to avoid mirror because their reflection shows them as ghosts and that could set up something interesting but no. This movie hates anything interesting.

The one redeeming thing about the dance? The guy playing “human” Stinky ate the physical performance of the role. He did good and actually made me not hate the ghosts during this one scene.

As expected, the witches find out the guys they were flirting with were the ghosts in disguise, and things just go up in flames, in a matter of speaking. No one gets along and they advise Casper and Wendy to stay away from each other and yadda yadda.

Then Casper is a pos who talks about how the witches can’t use their powers because they’re being tracked by Desmond so the ghosts go to their place to just fucking annoy them and make their life hell, so Wendy just uses her magic to put them in casts and they buzz off. Unfortunately that display has set off Desmond’s radar and he’s now on his way.

Also Josh is being a dick and stole Wendy’s wand during the commotion, so they can set up the “Casper scares Josh to help Wendy” scene that was telegraphed five hundred years ago. Whatever, the only thing Casper hammers on about is how “pretty” Wendy is so he’s a shallow bastard.

Knock knock, it’s Desmond and he’s here to open the mystical portal and send Wendy to like, witch hell. She gets her wand back from Casper, does her darn best to fight back but nope. Desmond is just too strong. And honestly, a the start, I thought they were setting up a “Wendy’s magic is boosted by friendship and love aka something Desmond does not know and that’s why his magic will never be as powerful as Wendy’s” which like, could be a cool message.

But no, he DOES throw her into the portal and Casper needs to go inside it to bring her back (using the longest red velvet rope I’ve ever seen in a film) and the dang uncle ghosts FINALLY do something useful and scare Desmond so he falls back into the portal himself and they have a chance to pull Wendy and Casper out. A very “eh” ending that could have been much better, but then again, I guess I was expecting much from this whole thing. I’m just glad they didn’t make it so Casper and Wendy are now living together or some bullshit like that.

Good riddance you damn ghosts!

Now, because I wrote about that in my notes a lot, how to make this a Wendy solo movie and fix this mess:

Use the first part of the movie that you used with damn ghosts shenanigans to set up Wendy and her aunt’s better. Make it seem more obvious from the get go that they want to protect Wendy from humans, but because they’re isolated witches who are prejudiced against humans they come off as dick-ish, which bothers Wendy but she knows they are at least meaning well. Also give Shelley Duvall a better character she’s just the “gross witch” because we needed a gross character to pair with the ghost. She could just be a cooky one who’s just a little “weirder” than your regular witch. I think she would be good at that.

Desmond’s character remains unchanged except he doesn’t have the hitmen. Heck, you could even keep Pauly Shore as the mirror. He could play the mirror part like in a Snow White deal like they were setting up (yeah, don’t think I didn’t notice they totally dropped the premise and used Shore like only two other times during the whole movie lol). Perhaps Desmond shows up at their door in disguise as I mentioned, but Wendy is not only strong, but also smart, so she manages to trick him and escape with her aunts, but now they’re on the run.

You can also drop the resort thing. Again, they’re only there so their plot can merge with the ghosts. They could infiltrate a neighborhood during like summer break and all the kids are out and about and that’s why Wendy wants to go out and mingle. And when they arrive like they’re “moving into the neighborhood” she meets Josh, which the aunts do not approve.

From this point on it’s all about Wendy and Josh bonding. It doesn’t even need to be like a long period of time. They could bond over a week or so, kids make friendships easy and fast. But it’s pretty obvious that there’s something off about Wendy because she doesn’t know what a bunch of regular stuff is and strange things are always happening around her. But cool, Josh just thinks her and her aunt are from the countryside or something so that’s why they’re a little strange.

Then Josh catches Wendy doing magic and is like “Wow, cool” because he’s a fucking kid and has whimsy. But the neighbours and the other humans living around are probably not gonna be very thrilled about witches being in their small town. Human vs. witches is a feud that has existed for eons now, and it’s a safe dynamic everyone is familiar with.

Maybe a dance still happens, perhaps Josh also has annoying but well meaning relatives that he tries to introduce to Wendy and her aunts, and things can go wrong and they’re exposed as witches. But the people are scared of confronting them because damn, witches can turn them into mush but also why are they in our neighborhood? Then Josh, who’s just a kid, gets frustrated and let’s slip that they’re there because they’re hiding and can’t use their power, and the people are like “sweet, let’s go hunt them!”

They go there, and while the witches can’t use magic (and you know, don’t wanna kill these people) they need to use it to protect themselves or like, die, and that sets off Desmond’s radar who’s there in no time and is like “Yo, very cool, now I’m gonna destroy Wendy, you three and also all these lame-o humans”. Because he’s evil you see.

Wendy and Desmond could end up dueling, and at some point Josh + her aunts give her strength so she can overcome him and protect everyone and they can go “See Desmond? Your magic will never be fully unlocked because your heart never felt true love from friends and family!” and they don’t even need to kill Desmond because children’s movie. He can just go “Hmph, you bested me, but I’ll be back >:(” and leave.

And then the humans are like “Damn, these witches saved us from doom, maybe they aren’t all bad.” And Josh going “I’VE BEEN SAYING!” and the witches are welcome to stay in the neighborhood because hey, you should accept people even if they’re different because they’re likely nice people and so on and so forth…

So yeah, this is my essay/review on Casper Meets Wendy.

#JusticeForJosh