Greetings, and welcome to the one week special of October Horror Fest! To celebrate the occasion, I thought I’d change it up a bit, and watch the first Non Horror movie of the challenge! Of course, I had to pick a great one. Read along with me to celebrate one week down of Horror Fest, by taking a look at one of my all time favorite movies. It’s one of the classics, and it is a movie that you all know the name of. Without further ado, sit back, relax, turn off the lights, grab some Candy and Popcorn, and let’s review…
Ghostbusters (1984)
Our story starts at the New York public library, with an elderly librarian. This librarian travels down to the basement, just to get some work done. As she travels throughout the library, more and more strange occurrences begin to unfold. Symmetrical book stacking, cards flying out of folders, and even levitating books. The librarian feels the stress, and begins to run, until she finds… a ghost!
Cut to the title screen of the movie, with the logo of the Ghostbuters, and a song that you all know the words to play in the background. We begin our true journey with Dr. Peter Venkman. He is in the middle of performing a psychology experiment on volunteers. As we see later in the movie, Pete is not afraid of anything, and is actively trying to pick up the female test subject. He shocks the male test subject, who is actually guessing the drawings on the cards of Pete’s game correctly, only because he wants to pick up the girl. The man, fed up, leaves. Pete makes a move, until Ray Stantz busts through his door. Ray is Pete’s friend, and active enthusiast of the paranormal. He wants Pete to come with him and Egon Spengler to investigate the library. Pete, being Pete, slaps Ray on the head and asks him to come back later, but Ray just can’t wait.
Once the pair arrive at the library, we meet Egon. Egon, another enthusiast of the unknown, is taking readings on the paranormal disturbances in the area with his P.K.E meter. Pete is less into the strange and mysterious compared to his friends, and questions the librarian if she’s schizophrenic. The boys eventually make it down to the basement, where they encounter the books, and the ghost. The group has to take a moment to digest what they are seeing, and they send Pete out to do the talking. He is immediately shushed by the ghost, and Ray develops a genius plan. The trio head out towards the ghost, and on Ray’s mark of… “Get Her!” the ghost changes into a monster, and the boys run out of the building, terrified.
After the encounter, Egon is finally able to convince Pete that they can really do this, and he agrees, giving Egon a crunch bar. Once the boys make it back to the university where they have been given a grant, they see the dean of the university and other helpers taking away their equipment. Pete trusts that they are being moved to better quarters on campus, but the dean informs them that they are being moved off campus. He has terminated their grant, and they are out of there. After being kicked out, Pete has a talk with Ray, and delivers a famous line to his friend. “Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma, I believe that everything happens for a reason”. Pete tells Ray that they can finally go into business for themselves. Ray and Pete share a drink, as Pete worries about the cost of finally making their dream a reality.
We cut to our boys walking out of a bank, placing a 19% interest rate on Ray’s birth home, a fact that terrifies him. The boys buy an abandoned firehouse after Ray becomes infatuated with an old fire pole, and officially become the Ghostbusters. We then meet Dana Barret, a woman who lives in the corner penthouse of a large NY building. She walks into her apartment with groceries, but not before being stopped by Louis Tully. Louis is a loudmouth, no shame man who doesn’t think before he acts. We are informed that Dana left her T.V. on, even though she has no memory of leaving it running. Louis even climbed out onto the ledge to attempt to turn Dana’s T.V. off, unsuccessfully. He then decided to put on his T.V. on max volume, just so everyone could think that both of their T.V.s had something wrong with them, after someone on the floor called the manager. (Just to give you an idea of who this guy is, he did this completely on his free will). Dana is finally able to be free, closing the door on Louis. Louis travels back to his apartment, which he locked himself out of. Dana then makes it to her kitchen, where she puts down eggs, and a bag of Stay Puft Marshmallows on the counter. When Dana goes to put away her other groceries, the eggs hop out of the container, and begin to cook on the counter, much to the fright and confusion of Dana. We hear growling coming from Dana’s fridge, and she goes to check it out. What we find is horrific. A pyramid with glowing energy all around it, and two demon dogs. One of the dogs barks, and speaks the name “Zuul”, before Dana closes the door in a panic.
Dana heads to the only people she can think of going to, that being the Ghostbusters. Their ads were plastered on her T.V., so she came to them. She asks their receptionist, Jenine Menitz, if she can talk to a Ghostbuster. Pete, once again being Dr. Pete Venkman, sees Dana and jumps out of his office, beginning to flirt with her before even getting her name. She is examined by the boys, and Egon finds out that she is telling the truth about the incident. Ray and Egon take up the jobs of researching Zuul, and Egon goes to check out Ms. Barrett’s apartment, after “accidentally” saying he’d go to Ms. Barrett’s apartment and check her out. Real smooth there, Venkman. At the apartment, Pete continues to flirt, finally ending with telling Dana that he is madly in love with her. After not finding anything at the apartment, Dana gets Pete to leave. We cut back to the Ghostbusters eating Chinese that represented the last of their petty cash. Right before Janine is going to leave, the Ghostbusters finally get a call. Janine pushes the button for the alarm to blare, and the Ghosbusters get right into action. Swinging down the pole and getting their uniforms on, our boys hop into one of the most famous movie cars, The Ecto-1.
The Ghostbusters first call brings them to a luxury hotel, where they encounter Slimer. Slimer is a green ghost who, well, slimes. On the way up to meet their green friend, our boys worry about carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on each of their backs. That tech is called the Proton Pack. The Ghostbuters use the packs on Slimer, but he keeps running away. Eventually, when Venkman is alone, Slimer crashes into him and slimes him. The Ghostbusters, Pete now being covered in slime, venture into an expensive ballroom where Slimer traveled to. After much, much, much destruction in the room, the boys in gray are eventually able to capture Slimer in a costume made ghost trap. Egon also fills his friends in on an extremely important piece of information. When using the packs, never cross the streams. If they do, their atoms would be melted and they would experience an extremely painful death. Pete takes in Egon’s warning, and then goes to charge the owner of the hotel 5k in another classic Venkman move.
The Ghostbusters popularity begins to ramp up in the city, and we are treated to an amazing montage of them successfully capturing many ghosts. This montage ends with Winston Zeddemore coming to the firehouse. He tells Janine that he will believe anything the Ghostbusters say as long as there’s a steady paycheck in it, and officially becomes part of the team. Shortly after Zeddemore joins, Pete finds Dana in a NY Park and once again flirts with her. Dana has been seeing the Ghostbusters success, and warms up more and more to Pete and the team. He tells Dana that he found information about Zuul. Zuul, according to Pete, is the minion of Gozer, a demon who was worshiped by the Tsumarians. Pete immediately offers to fill her in on the rest of the info about her case on Thursday at 9 in a shameless date proposal, which Dana accepts.
Back at the firehouse, Pete receives a visit from Walter Peck, a stiff-neck ambassador of the Environmental Protection Agency, who requests to see the Ghosbuster’s storage system and protection grid, where they keep the ghosts they capture. Pete says no, and Peck leaves to get a court order to have the firehouse searched, and the Ghostbusters arrested. Meanwhile, in the grid, it’s not looking well. Egon tells Winston and Ray that if the amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area was a twinkie, that twinkie would currently be 35 feet long, weighing approximately 600 pounds. A very big twinkie, and a very large problem for the boys in gray. We cut back to Dana, now Thursday night. Louis planned a party and invited her to it, which she forgot about and planned her night for Pete instead. Louis, being himself, tells Dana to bring him along, and travels back to his apartment, which he once again locked himself out of. Dana, while relaxing on her chair, is horrified when arms of beasts like the Dogs she saw come out of the chair and grab her, and a Demon Dog appears in her door. The chair flies towards it while Dana screams, and it shuts behind her. We then travel to Louis’s party, where a dog jumps through his closet door, and starts terrorizing his visitors. It chases Louis out of the apartment, and eventually possesses him.
Pete shows up at Dana’s apartment, and knocks on her door. Dana opens it, very obviously possessed, and wearing a very revealing outfit. She asks if he is the keymaster, and Venkman says no. Pete, for about the 5th time at this point pulls a Pete and knocks again, this time addressing himself as the keymaster, and walks with Dana. Pete and Dana, now possessed by Zuul, begin to get a bit intimate in the apartment, and Pete pulls a Venkman ONCE AGAIN by almost going through with it. He stops himself, and asks Zuul to speak to Dana. The demon takes full control, and says that there is no Dana, and that only Zuul remains. Zuul starts to levitate four feet above the bed, and twirls in the air. Meanwhile, back at the Firehouse, the police drop off Louis, now calling himself “Vinz Clortho” with Egon. Egon begins to question Vinz, and his x-ray even shows his head now looks like a dogs. Pete then calls Egon, and tells him about Dana, and how she is the keymaster. He tells Egon that he hit Dana with a crazy amount of tylenol, and it put her to sleep. Vinz, who addressed himself as the Gatekeeper, is also related to the mystery. Pete suggests that the two should meet up, and Egon says that that is a horrible idea. Pete hands up, telling Egon he will get to the Firehouse in a little while. We cut to Ray and Winston in the Ecto-1, traveling on a bridge. Winston brings up the Bible to Ray, and mentions Judgement Day, where the dead will rise from the grave. Winston also suggests the possibility that the reason the Ghostbusters have been so busy lately is because the dead have actually been rising from the grave, a statement that shakes both of the Ghostbusters. Ray suggests some music, and we are treated to an incredible shot of the Ecto-1 on the bridge with the New York Skyline in the background.
When it seems like nothing else can go wrong for the Ghostbusters, none other than Walter Peck shows back up at the firehouse, armed with his court order/warrant, a police officer, and an employee of Con Ed. He barges into the basement, and tells the Con Ed employee to shut off the protection grid and the storage facility. Egon tells him that doing so would be horrible, and would cause a bomb to essentially be dropped on New York. Pete then finally reaches the basement, and even with Egon and Pete both telling Peck to stop, he shuts off the protection grid. Alarms blare, and the Ghostbusters, along with Peck and his team, run out of the building as explosions ensue inside, and the roof is blown off. Strands of pink energy shoot out from the firehouse and travel across the sky, as we see Dana wake up and blow up the wall of her apartment, and Vinz Clortho starts making his way towards her. We see the pink energy traverse the city, and all of the ghosts that the Ghostbusters caught are now loose. We pick back up with the Ghostbusters in a large prison cell, surrounded by other inmates. The boys go over the blueprints and history of Dana’s apartment, and make some shocking discoveries.
The owner and builder of the apartment, after WW1, thought that Humanity was too sick to survive. He created a society called the Gozer Worshippers, and had close to 1000 followers when he died. His followers would perform many rituals on the roof of the building. He built the apartment to channel energy from the paranormal, and herald the ending of the world. Dana, all this time, lived in the corner penthouse of spook central. An officer comes to the cell, and informs the Ghostbusters that the mayor wants to see them, they leave, off for a date with destiny. We cut back to Vinz, who finally found Zuul. Once the Gatekeeper and Keymaster are united, they kiss, and begin to head up the stairs to the roof to champion the arrival of Gozer the Gozarian.
At the meeting with the mayor of New York, the Ghostbusters tell the Mayor how bad the situation is. Other witnesses in the room include a priest, other high ranking officials who confirmed the paranormal experiences flooding the city since the pink energy was released, and Walter Peck once again. Peck comes to the claim that the Ghostbusters use gas so people hallucinate ghosts. An official debunks this, and says whatever is happening right now beats the hell out of him, and he’s seen all forms of combustion known to man. The Ghostbusters go back to telling the mayor about the biblical proportions of the events transpiring. Pete is finally able to win over the mayor by telling him that if the Ghostbusters are wrong, they go to jail. But if they are right, and they can stop the end of the world, the Mayor will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters. In classic Venkman fashion, his words work, and he orders Peck out of the room. The Mayor calls the Military and the NYPD to the roads to escort the Ghostbusters to the apartment, and we are treated to an amazing scene of crowds cheering the Ecto-1 on as it travels towards its destination.
When the boys in gray arrive, they fall under rubble of the street collapsing due to the paranormal energy. The Ghostbusters climb out of the rubble, and run into the apartment, cheered on by all the spectators watching. We then see a hilarious scene, (this whole movie is hilarious, just wanted to touch on this) of the Ghostbusters traveling up lots and lots of stairs, as the elevator is broken in the apartment. When they reach the top, we see exactly what Dana saw in her fridge. Purple lightning comes down upon Dana and Louis, and they transform into the Demon dogs. Gozer, now taking the form of a woman, is summoned. The boys send Ray in to talk, and he tells her to go to the nearest parallel dimension or back to her place of origin, under the authority of the County, State, and City of New York. Gozer asks if he is a God, and Ray, finally pulling a Ray of his own, says no. Gozer tells them to die, and shoots out lightning at the Ghostbusters. After barely hanging onto the roof after coming close to falling off, the Ghostbusters heat up their packs. They fire at Gozer, and she disappears. The boys all think they won, and performed a full particle rehearsal on Gozer. However, there isn’t much time for celebration, as Egon picks up readings on his P.K.E meter…
We hear Gozer speak, and ask the Ghostbusters to choose a form. Egon understands the command, and tells his friends to clear their minds, and to not think of anything. Gozer says the choice has been made, and the Ghostbusters are thrown into panic and confusion. Pete questions everyone, and no one has made a choice, until he comes to Ray. Ray thought of something from his childhood that could never ever destroy them, and says it just “popped in there”. Egon tells his friends to look, as they see the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man walking down the streets of New York towards them. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man walks towards the building, and begins climbing it. The boys in gray fire at it with the packs, and fire envelopes it, causing fire to erupt upwards, and the Ghostbusters take cover. Egon thinks that they could close the gate, but they have to do the thing he dreaded most. He tells the Ghostbusters that they need to cross the streams, and that there is totally a slight chance they won’t be burned alive. Pete, in his final Pete Venkman moment of the film, is excited to be a part of the plan, and convinces his friends to do it. They cross the streams, and fire at the gate to the horror of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. They survive, and run for cover as the gate explodes, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is roasted.
Marshmallow Fluff rains down on the City, and a huge splash of it covers Walter Peck in an incredibly satisfying moment. The Ghostbusters come out of cover, covered in fluff, but thankful to be alive. Ray remarks that it smells like barbecued dog, until they see the burned corpses of the demon dogs. Ray apologizes to Pete, telling him that he forgot. There is sadness, until a hand reaches out from the arm. The four all begin taking apart the Demon Dog, and uncover Dana buried underneath, very much alive. Pete picks her up, while Egon, Ray, and Winston go to help Louis. Winston yells into the air that he loves the town, and we begin our celebration.
The iconic incredible Ghostbusters theme plays as the Ghostbusters exit the building. They are cheered on by the spectators, and Dana and Pete finally kiss. The rest of the team are cheered on as well, but poor Louis is taken away by medical workers. We end the film with the Ecto-1 driving away, and Slimer appearing once again, flying toward the camera.
That concludes Ghostbusters, and the one week special of October Horror Fest! I love Ghostbusters with all my heart, and it is in my top five movies. I have more merchandise than I can even count. I’m sorry about the sheer length of this article, but I couldn’t cover this amazing movie without going a little bit overboard! I’m so happy that I shared this movie with you all, although everyone reading this probably watched it, and definitely heard the song. One week into my challenge, and I’m feeling great! I hope you all are excited and spooked, and I have no plans of slowing down. But just before I go, ask yourself this. If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call?
