- Directed by Ivan Reitman
- Written by Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis
- Stars Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 45 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQAljlSmjC8
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a fun romp with some horror elements that still holds up for entertainment almost 40 years after release. The cast works well together, the script is good, and the special effects are still passable. We’d recommend it.
Synopsis
We open in the New York Public Library as a librarian runs into some weirdness in the basement. Credits roll.
We cut to Dr. Peter Venkman doing an ESP test on university students, and we see that he cheats depending on how cute the subject is. Dr. Raymond Stantz comes in, all excited about what happened at the library. Dr. Egon Spengler is already there, and he’s taken readings that show something is really happening.
The three go down to the basement, and Peter is skeptical while the other two are true believers. They find some snot– er, ectoplasm. Then they see their first real ghost… Now what do they do? They quickly learn what not to do.
Afterward, Egon thinks he can come up with a way to catch the ghost. When they get back to the University, they find out that they’ve been fired. Peter wants to go into business for themselves. They buy an old firehouse as a home base.
We then cut to Dana Barrett, a normal woman who lives in a creepy high-rise next door to Louis, a tiny, very chatty nerd. She watches a TV ad for “Ghostbusters,” and it’s the three guys from earlier. The groceries she just bought start acting up and her fridge becomes a portal to Hell. Who’s she gonna call?
Dana goes to see the Ghostbusters, and Peter’s eager to help. He’s more interested in Dana than the ghost, but he goes to her place to check her– it out. The fridge is full of– food. He’s persistent, but she’s not interested.
The guys complain that they’re just about broke, but then, Janine the receptionist gets a call from a hotel. The manager says that this has been going on for years on the twelfth floor, but it’s all gotten worse in the past few weeks. The guys are not subtle or quiet about it. On the way up, they talk about the nuclear backpacks they’re wearing. Egon warns them to never cross the streams on their weapons.
Ray runs into the little green blob ghost and calls the others. It then slimes Peter. They fight the little slimer, and the hotel ballroom pays the price. They shoot it with their beams and force it into their trap device. It works! The hotel manager thinks they’re crooks and refuses to pay– until they threaten to release the ghost back where they caught it.
Suddenly, ghost sightings are breaking out all over the city. The Ghostbusters are suddenly very busy, and most people stop thinking they’re cranks. They have to hire more help, Winston Zeddemore joins up for the steady paycheck. Ray shows him how to put ghosts into the “ghost jail” machines. Peter woos Dana to agree to a date.
Walter Peck, from the EPA comes to the station to talk to Peter. He doesn’t believe in ghosts and thinks the Ghostbusters are con artists. He wants to see their storage facility and assess any environmental impact. Peter throws him out.
Egon warns that the paranormal level of the whole city is growing enormously. Meanwhile, on the roof of Dana’s building, the stone gargoyles start turning into demon dogs. When she gets home, she finds her kitchen has a problem and it pulls her right in. Louis, who’s having a party across the hall, gets a much more public visit from a devil dog.
Peter shows up for his date with Dana, and she’s clearly different. She wants to know if he’s the Keymaster; she says she’s Zuul the Gatekeeper, and she wants to prepare for the coming of Gozer. He knows she’s possessed, especially when she gets all Exorcist-y.
Across town, Louis has been possessed by the Keymaster, and he’s out looking for the Gatekeeper. Back at the Ghostbusters’ HQ, the police bring Louis to Egon. and he’s very strange. Ray and Winston talk about the end times and the end of the world.
The EPA guy shows up again, and this time, he’s got a court order to shut down the Ghostbusters’ containment facility. Egon warns him not to shut the machines down, but they do anyway. All the ghosts they’ve ever captured explosively escape into the city, all at once. In jail, Ray explains the blueprints to Dana’s building and says the whole place was built to be a huge ghost-magnet.
As the mayor calls on the Ghostbusters for help, the Keymaster finally comes to the Gatekeeper, and they get together. By the time the Ghostbusters arrive at Dana’s building, the place is getting scary. That’s OK, because the crowd is there cheering them on.
The Gatekeeper and the Keymaster open the doorway and release Gozer. She’s not nice at all, and the guys shoot her with their neutron beams. She vanishes– they won!
No, they didn’t. A voice tells them to choose the form of The Destructor. They try not to choose anything, but Ray was thinking about marshmallows. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man attacks, and he’s a hundred feet tall. It stomps through town like a big fluffy Godzilla, and the guys shoot it again, but it has no effect.
Egon suggests they cross the streams on their weapon. That would be bad, but it just might work. They cross the beams, and everything explodes. The city is covered in marshmallow. Everyone is fine, even Dana and Louis.
They all go down to the screaming, happy crowd. As they drive their car away from the scene, we see that the Slimer is still out there.
Commentary
I didn’t remember just how much product placement this one had. The special effects are good for 1984, but wouldn’t hold up so well today.
It starts off strong and never slows down at all. The humor is still humorous, the action is fun, and the cast works really well together. It’s still a good time after all these years.