Ghostbusters

Since Halloween is close by, I thought that we should look at one of my all-time favorite comedies from 1984, “Ghostbusters.” This is a good film to watch around Halloween, but isn’t really scary for today’s standards. Still, those of you who grew up with this film and were scared by it when you saw it as children may not be scared by it today with an adult perspective.

This film is a head-on collision of two comic approaches that only work in that once in a blue moon lifetime. In this film, it did work. It’s a special-effects blockbuster and has a clever dialogue, where everyone talks to one another like graduate students who are a part of the joke. In the climax, a Sumerian shape-shifting god is raising havoc in Manhattan, "and our main heroes talk like Bob and Ray," according to Roger Ebert.

“Ghostbusters” is one of those rare movies that rebuttals the rule of special effects ruining a comedy. Special effects are hard work and those people have to put a lot of detail to make them look good. Comedy is all about impulse and improvisation, or what it should feel like regardless of how much effort is put in. When you watch Spielberg’s “1941,” look at the vast beauty of the special effects in that film which was the main driving force over everything else. You won’t laugh at that film because you have no reason to, but in this film, there is.

When you look at the effects in this movie, a lot of them are neat. Some of them mess with your head; others look like they were recycled. For example, look at when Slimmer (played by Mark Bryan Wilson, and voiced by the director, Ivan Reitman) eats away at the hot dogs. No matter what effects are used, they are there to help the actors out. Instead of us thinking that the characters have been placed in front of the effects, we feel that they are just improvising this as they shoot the film.

Our stars of this film are Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Dan Aykroyd, three comedy graduates either known from National Lampoon, SNL, or Second City. They are hilarious in this, but they also show how quick-witty and intelligent they are. Ebert comments that their dialogue “puts nice little spins on American clichés, and it uses understatement, irony, in-jokes, vast cynicism, and cheerful goofiness.” This is one of the most quotable films ever made, which comes around once in a while.

Now the plot involves a series of psychic reports all around Manhattan. Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis have lost their jobs as college parapsychologists, after their reports have been called bogus by the dean, played by Jordan Charney, so they open up their own business called “Ghostbusters.” They say that if people are haunted by ghosts, then they will be there to rescue them from the ghosts. However, business hasn’t been picking up until the attractive Sigourney Weaver calls in to say that her eggs were frying on her kitchen counter and her fridge has some sort of demon castle inside it. Her neighbor, played by the funny Rick Moranis, also notices demonic beasts in the apartment hallway. Apparently the apartment both of them live in is a gateway to another world. The Ghostbusters go down to the apartment suited with their Proton Packs, and having Ernie Hudson along as the new member. This is the highlight of the movie since a lot of the psychic knowledge in the dialogue is made up before they have a showdown with the Sumerian god, Gozer (Slavitza Jovan and voiced by Paddi Edwards), and his minions, Vinz Clortho, “The Keymaster,” and Zuul, “The Gatekeeper” (also voiced by Reitman). Around that time, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man arrives, and I will leave it there or else I will give away too much of the plot.

As I have already stated, this is a film where the comedy works well along with the big budget production. It is not proof for big-budget comedies, since the rule still applies that the more you spend, the less you get the audience to laugh. But the money is spent the right way, and when the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man stomps all over Manhattan and climbs the skyscraper, you can see where they spent the money since this is one of the funniest scenes in the entire movie.

Just a heads up: expect a cameo appearance of adult movie actor Ron Jeremy and Reginald VelJohnson.

For this film, I have to give it a solid 10, it’s one of my all-time favorite comedies, and I just adore it. Sure it’s right for Halloween since the effects in this film could scare children today, but not the adults who watched the movie when they were once their children’s age. It might still scare them, but that depends on who it is.

What can be said for the sequel that came out 5 years later? Find out tomorrow when I talk about the equally good sequel, in my opinion.