Ghostbusters was released in theatres on June 8, 1984, at which time I was six months old - which means this film came out at just the right moment to make it a hugely important part of my childhood. Apparently the film didn't reach VHS until Halloween 1985, even closer to the point when I could truly start to appreciate it, but VHS rentals weren't required for this one. At my maternal grandmother's house, there was a VHS tape with Ghostbusters on it, recorded off of one of the premium movie channels. I don't know when that airing was, but it provided a recording that I would watch over and over. Along with the VHS that had Commando on it, the one with Ghostbusters on it is the one I best remember putting into my grandparents' VCR again and again.
As a child, it didn't take me long to become fascinated with horror, and Ghostbusters is a perfect movie for little fledgling monster kids. Director Ivan Reitman (Meatballs, Stripes) was able to make a hilarious comedy that also has a strong supernatural story at its core and some spooky moments. It's packed with ghosts, but those ghosts aren't aren't too terrifying. They look pretty cool, actually, and one of the ghosts seen in this movie - a floating green blob called Slimer - became of the most beloved pop culture characters there was for kids of my generation. The film has horror ideas that are safely wrapped up in very amusing, kid-friendly packaging.
The idea for a comedy about busting ghosts came from Dan Aykroyd, who had been raised to believe in the paranormal, as an interest in such things stretched back generations in his family, to his great-grandfather. At first, he saw this idea as a follow-up to The Blues Brothers for himself and John Belushi, but Belushi passed away when Aykroyd was in the midst of writing a version of the Ghostbusters script that would have been too expensive to pull off. His initial idea was set in the future, where a group called the Ghostbusters were already established and would travel through space and time to battle supernatural threats. It was Reitman who stepped in and saw that Aykroyd needed to ground the concept in 1980s reality, to keep the characters in modern day New York rather than going on all sorts of sci-fi adventures. Reitman also made the wise decision to bring in his Meatballs and Stripes collaborator Harold Ramis to help Aykroyd rewrite the script into something they could actually make.
Aykroyd and Ramis also took on the roles of two of the titular Ghostbusters. Aykroyd plays Dr. Raymond Stantz, the one who is most openly excited about having the chance to deal with ghosts. Ramis is Dr. Egon Spengler, the intellectual of the group, who is equally excited that they have found a way to interact with, capture, and contain ghosts, but shows his enthusiasm in a different way. Aykroyd and Ramis were perfect their roles, and the next genius move was getting Bill Murray on board to play the third original Ghostbuster, Dr. Peter Venkman. Venkman doesn't really seem to care about the paranormal, he has just joined in with Stantz and Spengler and he's along for the ride. He's exactly the sort of character you expect and hope to see from Murray; one who's completely irreverent, removed enough from every situation that he's able to drop a constant stream of wisecracks. But also involved enough in the situation that he'll insult someone for being a dick. Or dickless.
After years of researching the paranormal, Stantz and Spengler, with Venkman in tow, are able to encounter a legitimate, undeniable ghost for the first time in the New York Public Library. This encounter is enough to convince Spengler that he knows how to build a working "ecto-containment system", a ghost lock-up... and the encounter also happens to coincide with Columbia University terminating the grant for their Paranormal Studies Laboratory. That pushes them right into starting their ghostbusting business, which they run out of an old firehouse. Pretty soon, business is booming. So much that their receptionist Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) is feeling overworked, but they don't do anything about that. They do hire a fourth ghostbuster to help them in the field: Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore, the blue collar one of the bunch. Hudson has some memorable moments, but has much less to do in the film than the other ghostbusters have. His role was going to be larger at one point, but got whittled down so the Venkman role could be further expanded.
While Aykroyd may believe there are ghosts around us at all times, he and Ramis provide an explanation for why the ghostbusters are kept so busy dealing with paranormal activity when the world seems to be so ghost-free for many of us skeptics. There's talk of an increase in paranormal activity all across the Eastern seaboard, of a massive surge in psychokinetic energy in New York City, and the ghostbusters will come to find out the reason for this is the fact that an apartment building in the city was specifically designed to serve as a "superconductive antenna" that "concentrates spiritual turbulence". This building was constructed by a man named Ivo Shandor, who was part of a doomsday cult that worshiped an ancient god called Gozer. Shandor and his fellow cultists wanted Gozer to bring about the end of the world, and this building was constructed to do the job of drawing in Gozer and getting the apocalypse started. This building is so good at doing what it was designed to do, that's why people start seeing these floating, glowing ghosts all over the place. The explanation is very much appreciated.
That Shandor apartment building happens to be home to Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) and her goofy neighbor Louis Tully (Rick Moranis), and soon enough some strange things Dana witnesses in her apartment, which she asked the ghostbusters to check out but their investigation didn't go anywhere (especially since Venkman was more interested in putting the moves on Dana), lead to both her and Louis getting possessed. Dana's body is inhabited by Zuul, "the Gatekeeper" minion of Gozer. Louis is taken over by Vinz Clorho, the Keymaster. Clearly, the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster should not be around each other, otherwise they're going to unlock and open whatever gate will allow Gozer into our world. The ghostbusters try to keep them apart, but this doesn't go smoothly for them.
Things are complicated by the fact that Walter Peck (William Atherton) of the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to get the ghostbusters shut down because he fears their ecto-containment unit may be harmful to the environment. In a moment that is equally infuriating and awesome, Peck forces the ghostbusters to power down the unit, unleashing all of the ghosts they have captured out into New York City - and we watch the ghosts spread through the area while Mick Smiley's very cool song "Magic" plays on the soundtrack. This all helps us build up to a climax where the ghostbusters have to save the world while faced with demonic gargoyle dogs, Gozer (model Slavitza Jovan, with Paddi Edwards providing the voice)... and yes, a giant version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, the cuddly mascot of a brand of marshmallows that Gozer pulls the image of right out of Stantz's childhood memories.
Ghostbusters is a really fun movie, ranking up there among the most entertaining movies ever made. It provides a lot of laughs over the course of its 105 minutes, which move by at a very quick pace. I've loved this movie from the first time I saw it when I was... I don't know, 2 or 3 years old... and still love it whenever I revisit it now. The viewings are much less frequent than they were back in the days of that VHS tape at grandma's house, but they come around from time to time and I'm reminded of how brilliant this movie really is.
Plus it has one of the greatest theme songs of all time, thanks to Ray Parker Jr. The video for that song is really cool as well, with appearances from the likes of Chevy Chase, George Wendt, John Candy, Danny DeVito, Peter Falk, Teri Garr, Carly Simon, and others. When I used to attend theatrical horror marathons in Columbus, Ohio, that video would sometimes be shown between movies, and it was always a good time to see that projected on the big screen.
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