On My Shelves: Ghostbusters

The year was 1984, Orwell's year, the year that the Apple Mac first burst onto the scene, also the year I finished graduating from Hudson Valley Community College and moved on to SUNYA to study psychology. It was also the year of the Terminator, of the Karate Kid, and the original Nightmare on Elm Street.

 

And it was the year that Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Akroyd, and Sigourney Weaver told us who we're gonna call.

 

Ghostbusters begins with a brilliantly atmospheric stage setting, with the New York City Library experiencing a terrifying manifestation of the supernatural. We then are introduced to our main characters, three scientists studying the paranormal at Columbia University: enthusiastic and overly-innocent Ray Stantz, obsessive Egon Spengler with his encyclopedic knowledge of the supernatural, and Peter Venkman, the charismatic but wisecracking and cynical front man who seems to take his "research" little more seriously than the rest of the world does.

 

These three are called in to investigate the events at the Library – and sure enough, encounter a librarian's ghost. An ill-considered attempt to capture the ghost (Ray's plan: "GET HER!") results in the spirit transforming to a horrific apparition that sends the three running in utter terror from the building.

 

Bad fortune piles atop this humiliation, however; they return to Columbia to find they are no longer employed, their grants cut off, and in need of something else to support themselves – a most daunting prospect, as Ray puts it: "Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*."

 

Forced into action, the three decide that since they now know that ghosts are real, they use their knowledge of the supernatural to become the world's first paranormal investigators and ghost exterminators – the Ghostbusters. Their first professional call results in… severe collateral damage, but is nonetheless a professional success, as they manage to actually capture the ghost and be paid for their work, despite the hotel manager's initial reluctance:

 

Hotel Manager: Five thousand dollars? I had no idea it would be so much. I won't pay it.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Well, that's all right, we can just put it right back in there.

Dr Ray Stantz: We certainly can, Dr. Venkman.

[turning back to ballroom]

Hotel Manager: No, no, no, no! All right! I'll pay anything!

Dr. Peter Venkman: Thanks so much.

 

Following this, paranormal activity begins to rise spectacularly, and the three eventually become four – hiring an office manager, Janine Melnitz – and then five, hiring Winston Zeddemore to become an additional field man. The Ghostbusters become noted, if peculiar, celebrities, and have multiple cases. But the most important begins when Dana Barrett (played by Sigourney Weaver) opens her refrigerator to find that it's become a portal to Hell…

 

Ghostbusters is that rarity among movies, a comedy that I actually found funny, and still find funny today. I'm pretty picky about my comedy, and many things others find sidesplittingly funny leave me blinking "and… so?"

 

As with one of the other rare examples of this – Galaxy Quest (which, oddly, also features Sigourney Weaver!) – Ghostbusters succeeds in this, at least in part, by taking itself seriously within the story-world. Yes, there's plenty of stuff the audience finds funny, and, sometimes, even the characters do, but it all makes sense within the world they live in, and the stakes they are playing for are all very, very real.

 

Thus, we can laugh while Rick Moranis, as Louis Tully (possessed by Vinz Clortho, the Gatekeeper) reels off a litany of ridiculous-sounding manifestations of Gozer ("many shubs and zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar that day, I can tell you!"), but then feel the tension and terror of walking into a haunted building after nearly being swallowed by the earth… and then chuckle again as the team realizes they have to take the STAIRS to the top of a skyscraper.

 

Like any great comedy, Ghostbusters is a symphony of perfect timing – even the jump-scare moments are timed to be in service to the next tension-releasing laugh. And, like The Incredibles, Ghostbusters has a vast number of bon mots, lines that are almost endlessly quotable. Perhaps the most famous is "When someone asks you if you're a god, you say yes!", but there are dozens of others ("Right, that's bad. Important safety tip, thanks Egon"; Venkman: "Ray's gone bye-bye, Egon; what've you got left?" Egon (in a completely calm, deadpan voice): "Sorry, Venkman; I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought."). Like a few others, this a movie that recalls itself to you and your friends through a few words that replay the entirety of its tension and amusement compressed into instants.

 

It's also clearly written by someone who understood the supernatural investigation world and the literature of the supernatural that preceded it. The jargon parodies the more serious supernatural thrillers, the technological approaches both echo and mock those depicted in other stories, and the plotline is appropriately apocalyptic as any true supernatural disaster movie should be… just twisted around a few degrees to make it ridiculous.

 

Yet not too ridiculous, because we still have to take its threats seriously. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man seems like a completely silly idea, a concept that should break the suspense and tension permanently… yet it doesn't, because the gigantic thing manages to somehow look threatening, with the expressions of destructive amusement in some ways being more creepy for being put on the face of a parody of the Pillsbury Doughboy crossed with the Michelin Man.

 

This was one of the favorite movies of my youth, and it still holds up well today. Very, VERY highly recommended!