Ghostbusters

Year: 1984
Director: Ivan Reitman
Stars: Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Ernie Hudson

When there’s something strange in your neighborhood, when there’s something weird and it don’t look good, an invisible man sleeping in your bed, when you’re seeing things running through your head, who ya gonna call?

That’s right, the source of one of movie history’s most bizarrely successful franchises: Ghostbusters!

In 1984, the franchising world was overtaken by Ghostbusters fever, with the theme song by Ray Parker Jr hitting the top of the charts the world over, and images and toys emerged on the market that are still being peddled to this day.

The movie itself is fun and original. Murray, Ackroyd and Ramis play three parapsychologists (that’s ‘ghosthunters’ to you and I) who are in the gig for different reasons: Whilst Egon Spengler (Ramis) is deadly serious, Ray Stantz (Ackroyd) loves the university life just as much as the kooky science, and Peter Venkman (Murray) knows it’s a great way to get girls, safe in the knowledge that there’s no such thing as ghosts.

Then a real, spooky, actual ghost appears at the public library….

Just as they get their breakthrough, they are kicked off campus and are forced to set up in business doing all they find themselves qualified for – ghost hunting. After they catch a spook in a New York hotel, they become instant stars, recruit a fourth employee called Winston (Hudson) to help with the workload, and are called in by Dana Barrett (Weaver) after she sees strange things in her apartment.

Egon and Ray discover that the plans for her building include metalwork that somehow acts as an ‘antenna’ to attract the spirits of ancient Sumerian spirits, but before they can get to the building they are thrown in jail, apparently for contravening ‘Environmental Safety’ regulations. The moronic ESA guy shuts the power to the Ghost Containment field, which releases scores of captured spooks into the city.

Meanwhile, Dana and her geeky neighbour (Moranis) have been possessed by the Sumerian Spirits and are on the verge of releasing the evil Gozer, when our heroes arrive in the nick of time to save the day….

Ghostbusters quickly became one of the 80s’ box office success stories, making it’s $30 million budget back in a little over a week. The stars of the show are brilliant, each bringing elements of their own flawed characters to the roles. Murray in particular comes across as very much improvising much of his mannerisms and speech, drawing on his Saturday Night Live experience to the full.

The effects are cool, the script funny, the supporting cast (which at some points seem to include most of the New York public) throw themselves in with gusto, and in hindsight it’s not hard to see why the franchise movement took off as it did.

Overall, Ghostbusters marks a milestone in movie history. Pretty much everyone has seen it. for those who have not, waddya waitin’ for?