A comedy that never seems to age.

Rating: 10/10 (14 October 2018)

My first exposure to Ghostbusters happened when I was quite young and I do remember watching it a few times and rather enjoying it even if there were moments that scared the ever-loving crap out of me but as I got older, the film dropped out of my viewing radar until I decided to rewatch it last year and low and behold, it still holds up just as much as it did back in 1984. From it's ingenious mixture of horror and comedy to its perfect casting and catchy theme song, Ghostbusters easily stands head and shoulders above most of today's painfully unfunny comedies.
The film starts with a ghost haunting an old library and freighting a librarian. Following this incident, three out-of-work parapsychologists named Peter Vankman, Raymond Stantz, and Egon Spengler, who have started their own business called Ghostbusters, are called in to investigate but are scared out of the library. Upon being fired from their jobs at a local university, the three move into an abandoned fire station and make it their base of operation. Meanwhile, a woman named Dana Barrett returns to her apartment and soon sees a carton of eggs cooking themselves on her countertop as an evil demonic spirit speaks the words "Zuul". Faced with the increased paranormal activity around New York City, the team hire another member named Winston Zeddmore but now they also must face an even greater threat then Dana is possessed by Zuul and prepares for the arrival of a Sumerian god known as Gozer and only the Ghostbusters can stop it.
In light of the awful 2016 remake which felt more like an unintentional parody of a Ghostbusters movie, the original film still remains a high-water mark for comedies that deal with supernatural elements like Dogma, Young Frankenstein, and Beetlejuice. It's always been a hard nut to crack in terms of balancing the line between horror and comedy just right and while movies like Evil Dead II pulled this off perfectly, Ghostbusters remains the perfect cinematic model to use when it comes to approaching the area of supernatural comedy. Give how it was Dan Aykroyd who came up with the idea for a team of men traveling through time and different demotions hunting ghosts as well as writing the first outline for what the movie would later become, this idea is nothing short of interesting and original but when director Ivan Reitman got ahold of it, he told Dan to scale it back a notch and make it more grounded but nonetheless, it did provide a strong base for Reitman, Aykroyd, Harold Ramis as well as the rest of the cast to build upon and add in new ideas as they saw fit. Plus, the screenplay for the movie is a perfect example of how to do characters in a comedy without having them come across as painfully unfunny stereotypes or characters with no depth or personality. Over the course of the film, there are times where the character of Peter Vankman is doing things that any normal person would deem to be unappealing or downright offensive as shown in a scene where he deliberately gives a student a shock while carrying out a cognitive test. Now, does the scene make the viewer assume that Vankman is the kindest man on Earth? Not in the slightest. Does the moment make you believe that he is funny as all hell? Absolutely. Out of all of the characters in the movie, Vankman seems to be the one who grows the most as a person over the course of the story as he starts out as a flirting twit but once he meets Dana, he begins to change into a more bona fide and honorable character as well as having something worth fighting for ay the end of the film. As for the other Ghostbusters, they really don't get much in the way of development but with that being said, they really don't need any as they are flawless in their own right and have no reason to be developed. All four of the Ghostbusters are engaging, comical and serve the film's plot as they are needed. One thing this film does so much better than the remake was the handling of the character of Winston Zeddmore in that he isn't portrayed as a scientist but rather an average working-class guy who just needs a job which makes him a character anyone can relate to instead of a screaming African-American stereotype in the remake. Even the other side-characters like Janine Melnitz, Louis Tully, and Dana Barrett are great characters and they never feel like they overstay their welcome nor are they ever aggravating to the point of stupidity unlike some characters in recent comedy films.
Something else that Ghostbusters does so it is making the lead characters the little guys who have to break the system and while the 2016 remake attempted to do the same thing, there it just felt automatically given to the 4 leads rather than have it be earned but in the '84 movie, that element of the story feels natural as the team really do feel like they are the underdogs as at first they all lose their jobs and are seen as deranged or hustlers by a large array of doubters. The '84 movie takes this idea even farther as by way of the character of Walter Peck: a pompous attorney for the EPA whose desire is to pull down the Ghostbusters at every turn and nearly achieves his goal. This idea not only provides the viewer a feeling that the team is doing battle against government officials and the order of things, it also gives the Ghostbusters some tangible blockades to conquer along with giving them the necessary character growth as a team.
With the aid of Reitman and Ramis, Aykroyd grounded the movie's story in reality much in the same way Christopher Nolan would later do with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight so that not only do the Ghostbusters have to do battle with legislators, attorneys, and hotel supervisors while doing their job but also the world they inhabit looks real and lived-in rather than overly fanciful or dark and gritty. The romantic subplot between Peter and Dana is nicely handled as both characters have wonderful chemistry with each other and the romance never feels like it's just there for the sake of the plot not to mention Dana actually speaks like and acts like a real single woman in New York City which makes her character all the more likable and enduring and we understand why Peter is fond of her which is more than I can say for the overly-feminized and unlikable characters Paul Feig and Katie Dippold gave us in the remake. The romance between Vankman and Dana adds another grounded and adult aspect to the movie. Throughout the course of any action or action-comedy film, it's always a total blast to see the heroes having to something they shouldn't do in order to defeat the villain and save the day. Much like the air tanks in Jaws or Dr. Strange's plan in Avengers: Infinity War, the ex machine that will destroy Gozer is implied earlier in the movie. Not only is it essential to put your characters in a no-win scenario, but it's also a great innovation to have them win by shattering the rules. The crossing the streams idea isn't just a convenient resolution to the film's climax but it also adds to the movie's motifs of identity and anti- absolutism that run throughout the film. This is one of the many reasons why the original Ghostbusters is still seen as a beloved classic while the 2016 remake will likely continue to ridiculed and hated for years to come.
Even though Dan Aykroyd required other people to help him get the story more grounded and less out there but simply put, there would have been no Ghostbusters if it wasn't for Dan and his zeal for the supernatural. The original movie never once demoralizes its ghostly aspects. Even those characters who are shown to be total cynics are soon convicted otherwise. The movie takes it's lore passionately and much of the movie's humor comes from how the characters respond to the eerie circumstances instead of the situations themselves. The Ghostbusters is in no way a camp movie but rather a supernatural comedy in the vain of what Tim Burton or Mel Brooks do with their films where the reaction is just as important as what we're seeing on screen. Even the arrival of the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man at the end battle is more of a joke about Ray's childhood naivetÃ© being used against the team. The film was realized by a man who wasn't just fascinated by the paranormal but also had a great level of admiration for it as well. Regardless of whatever idea a movie has, no matter how outlandish or far-fetched, the more genuine it'll be if you put the effect into your film's screenplay and make that idea come alive, then the more convincing your movie will be to the audience and the more they'll respond to it.
Unlike some modern-day blockbusters who feel like they need to be dull and grandiose in order to give the impression that they're somehow deep and thought-provoking films like Batman V. Superman and therefore lacking in any sense of fun or excitement, Ghostbusters is both a hilarious and entertaining film about the supernatural world that is able to work without having to talk down to it's audience. The action set pieces of the team catching Slimer in the hotel and the scene of them battling Gozer and the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man are all perfectly executed to a high standard and looks incredibly real as well as a lot of fun to watch instead of the giant CGI eyesore action set piece that the 2016 movie gave us. As for the visual effects, they may look cheesy by today's standards but they still work in the movie's favor when working with the more comical style as well as being compatible with the overall story. There are even some genuinely frightening moments in keeping with the horror aspects of the film such as the stop-motion Terror Dogs or the scene of Dana being processed by Zuul and while the scares are few and far between, they still work wonderfully well. The soundtrack for Ghostbusters is composed by the great Elmer Bernstein and it's easily one of the best soundtracks for a comedy movie I've ever heard. The opening theme of the film