Franchise Friday: Ghostbusters (1984)
Ivan Reitman's classic works despite its best attempts not to.
Earlier this year, a friend and I hit upon what we thought was a can’t-miss idea for a podcast. I’m not going to go into detail on the off chance we ever scrounge up the time and resources to put it together, but it dealt with exploring classic movie franchises. We recorded two episodes, which were a lot of fun, but work, family and other responsibilities made it hard to watch all the films, do the extra creative prep it required, record and edit.
One of the series we covered was Ghostbusters, in anticipation of Jason Reitman’s upcoming reboot/sequel. It was an easy choice to start with. There was not only the timeliness, but also the fact that Ghostbusters is one of the most popular films in the world, as well as a franchise that’s had an interesting series of ups and downs.
Plus, as I wrote a few weeks back, I love Ivan Reitman’s 1984 movie. I originally saw it at a friend’s house in first grade, a few years after its initial release. I watched it nonstop after my parents recorded it off TV, and I quickly became a fan of the Saturday morning “The Real Ghostbusters” cartoon. I had plastic proton packs that my siblings and I played with in the basement, and I bugged my mom until she agreed to take us to see Ghostbusters II on opening day. I’ve likely seen it more than any other movie, and I have entire sections memorized.
But as we sit just a few weeks away from another reboot, I return to the question that I posed to my friend: why does Ghostbusters work so well, and why has its success been so hard to replicate?
Honestly, I’m not sure I have answers to the first question; and I think that provides an interesting answer to the second.
The ‘Seinfeld’ of supernatural movies?
A few weeks ago, I referenced Patrick Willems’ video essay about how Ghostbusters is a film about nothing. Despite it having a clear plot and structure, there’s nothing thematic or subtextual to it. The characters don’t change, there isn’t a major conflict and there’s no Big Idea driving the narrative. Willems isn’t arguing that Ghostbusters is bad — he’s a fan — but rather says the film succeeds despite having nothing below the surface.
I think that there’s a lot of validity to his thesis, even if I didn’t always believe that. When my wife complained that Ghostbusters was stupid (a view she still held when we recently rewatched it), I used to argue that it was actually a clever commentary about blue collar workers saving the world. In recent years, I’ve argued that it’s a higher concept slobs-vs-snobs comedy, with its band of slackers pushing back against stiff government regulators and ivory tower academics. If I really wanted to push, I could say that it’s about Peter Venkman learning to take science seriously and gain respect.
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And I do think there are elements of all those woven through Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis’ script. Ghostbusters is a story about academics who become blue-collar service workers. Given its setting in the Reagan era, it’s perhaps fitting that it’s a celebration of capitalism, whose characters find fame and fortune as entrepreneurs and save the world when the government overreaches. And I think there’s definitely something lurking at the edges about Peter Venkman, who indeed is introduced using research to score with girls but who has a crestfallen look when he’s told he’s a poor scientist; there’s a slight thread throughout Ghostbusters about Venkman starting to take the paranormal seriously.
But I ultimately agree with Willems that none of these really stick. They provide texture, but they’re ultimately surface-level concerns, abandoned whenever the story needs to move on to the next joke or supernatural threat. They contribute to character shading and world building, but they’re not issues that the film is overly concerned about. Rather, what Ghostbusters seems to be interested in is delivering a combination of humor and special effects without one overriding the other. And that’s where the movie becomes a classic.
Strange alchemy
The truth is, Ghostbusters is a movie that threatens to fall apart every second, yet it never does. It’s a movie whose original script should have never worked. Aykroyd wrote it as another collaboration for him and John Belushi, and the original concept involved interdimensional travel, elaborate special effects and heady sci-fi mumbo jumbo. When director Reitman came aboard, he had comic legend Ramis work help ground it in some sort of recognizable reality and combine Aykroyd’s knowledge of the supernatural with something more funny and budget conscious.
It never feels like its high concept is at war with the comedy. The ghosts walk a tightrope between being legitimately scary (the librarian ghost gave me nightmares as a kid) and silly, whether it’s Slimer bursting from a hot dog cart or the Sta-Puft marshmallow man stepping on a church. The effects are still largely convincing; aside from some compositing issues when the Terror Dogs burst out of the apartment and into Central Park, they still work.
But it also helps that while the film does go very large at times, its cast is always ready to puncture any pretension. The humor comes not from the Ghostbusters doing pratfalls, but rather from the cast’s reactions. It’s Egon and Ray freezing when they realize they’ve theorized ghosts all their career but never came up with a plan for actually dealing with it. It’s little details, like the terrified look on Egon’s face (and slow scootch to the corner of the elevator) when they switch on Ray’s proton pack for the first time, or the cigarette dropping from Aykroyd’s mouth when he encounters Slimer. It’s Bill Murray taking every opportunity he can to wrest attention away from everyone else.
The Ghostbusters cast is composed of sketch comedy superstars, with Murray and Aykroyd veterans of Saturday Night Live and Ramis and Rick Moranis SCTV alums. I’ve heard the theory before that SNL created stronger comedians but SCTV cultivated skilled actors, and I think the influence of the latter show can be felt throughout Ghostbusters. For the most part (we’ll get to the exception), the actors play actual characters, not outsized caricatures. Ray is all childlike enthusiasm and heart, but he’s also well-versed in supernatural lore. Egon is the brainiac, but Ramis wisely gives him just enough smartass reaction shots to not make him a cartoon. Even Moranis, whose role comes perilously close to goofy, grounds the character; Louis introducing all his party guests by revealing their financial situation (and saying how he invited “clients, not friends” so he could write off the party) is the type of weird quirk that gives shading to the character (who really doesn’t even need it because he eventually just turns into a dog).
By playing their characters straight, Aykroyd and Ramis don’t leave the humor on the table so much as open up the film so that even non-comedic actors can get in on the fun. Ernie Hudson, who took the role after Eddie Murphy passed, originally had a much larger role, including an Air Force background for his character. But his smaller part is actually one of the most essential; he’s the regular guy who just wants a job. Ideally, he’d be an audience surrogate, but Hudson actually comes into the film too late for that; but when he’s on the screen, saying “if there’s a steady paycheck, I’ll believe anything you say,” he’s drawing texture, giving a little more shading to the capitalism and class themes that flit in and out through the movie. And because the ensemble’s so grounded, it allows Sigourney Weaver to both be a character who needs the Ghostbusters’ assistance without turning her into a personality-free damsel in distress. Weaver’s no-nonsense attitude really plays well with Murray’s all-nonsense shtick, but she also is allowed to smile and joke around, making her character a foil, not a wet blanket.
And now we should talk about Peter Venkman. Growing up, I thought there was no higher form of comedy than Bill Murray’s performance here. If every other actor plays it relatively grounded, Murray just often appears to wander in and doing his thing. There isn’t a moment where he isn’t doing shtick; I don’t believe he has a single line that isn’t a quip. It should be annoying, a cartoon character stuck in the middle of a relatively deadpan supernatural comedy. Plus, Venkman’s a bit of an asshole. He coasts on the work of his colleagues, manipulates his friend into selling his family home, treats everyone as if they’re dumber than him, and aggressively throws himself at a new client. Also, he’s introduced delivering electric shocks to a man who is not only innocent, but also displaying legitimate psychic gifts. Venkman might not be a dumb scientist, but he is a bad one and a bit of a creep.
This is the type of performance that should have aged poorly, and by every right, I should cringe every moment Murray is on the screen. And yet, I love him in this. It’s no longer my favorite role of his (on any given day, that might be Groundhog Day or Lost in Translation), but it’s quite possibly his most iconic. The key is that Murray is well aware of how much of a jerk Venkman is, and he leans into it. He unleashes Venkman, smirking at everything and taking the starch out of it. Were the character not in this movie, it would likely become silly and nonsensical very fast, collapsing under the weight of its effects and concepts. Every single moment he’s on screen, Murray lets us know it’s not as cool as we think it is. He undercuts the grandeur and transforms a supernatural adventure into high comedy. The movie might have been a success without Murray; I might even like it. But it would not be the classic it became, still quoted nearly 40 years later. That’s how good Bill Murray is here.
The A-Team
And yet, Murray isn’t even the reason Ghostbusters is so beloved. Were it just a so-so movie with a great Bill Murray performance, I think it might be remembered fondly but still not be iconic (it would likely have about the same status as, say, Stripes). Rather, the reason Ghostbusters became such a behemoth is because everyone involved understood the assignment and made something greater than the sum of its parts.
This movie doesn’t exist without Aykroyd. And as frustrating as it’s been over the years to see him push for a Ghostbusters III and try to steer the franchise in more serious directions, I can’t fault that his idea and the world he builds here. Aykroyd is a supernatural nut; his father literally wrote the book on ghosts. But he needed Reitman and Ramis to come in, cut the fat and ground this; that nerdy knowledge and speculation is still present, yet it doesn’t overwhelm the story. And Sheldon Kahn’s editing helps the film retain its shape; it’s not just the tightness of the story or the clever montage sequences. If you’ve ever seen the film’s deleted scenes, you understand just how closely this came to tipping over into sheer insipidness.
You need a dedicated special effects team to pull off the ghost sequences; if they looked chintzy, the comedy would never work. Cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs gives it a gritty, lived-in look, and Reitman wrangles all the egos to makes sure no one overwhelms the movie (aside from Murray, but again, that’s the point of his performance). And then the cherry on top is that iconic score, plus the Ray Parker Jr. song, which turns the film into a giant event.
I can’t think of a moment in Ghostbusters that isn’t either quotable or instantly classic. Yes, the Slimer sequence and showdown with Mr. Sta-Puft are what instantly come to mind. But even effects-free dialogue sequences are wonderful. It wasn’t until this most recent viewing that I realized in the sequence with the Mayor, as Ray warns of a disaster of “biblical proportions” and Murray rails about dogs and cats living together, that this isn’t just a sequence of them using hyperbole. This conversation occurs moments after the local Cardinal has come in, revealing the mayor’s faith. The Ghostbusters’ warning about biblical disaster is manipulation; they’re appealing to the mayor’s faith to sell their story. It’s clever and also a good joke, and it’s so well woven into the story that it took me nearly four decades to realize it.
I’m surprised how confident Ghostbusters is. This is a movie where everyone seems to know they’re making a classic. You can see it in the smile on Murray’s face and in the energy of scenes shot with a large crowd of extras. This is a movie where everyone feels like they know exactly what they have, even if you can also feel how closely it comes to tottering over. Ghostbusters is a perfect accident of a movie, a collaborative effort that works in spite of itself.
And that special alchemy is why it (so far) has not worked again. But that’s for next week, with Ghostbusters II.