For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Night 15 prompt is Wet Ghosts.We watched the movie Ghostbusters on Amazon Prime.
Storyline
Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler work at Columbia University. where they delve into the paranormal and fiddle with many unethical experiments on their students. As they are kicked out of the University, they really understand the paranormal and go into business for themselves. Under the new snazzy business name of ‘Ghostbusters’, and living in the old firehouse building they work out of, they are called to rid New York City of paranormal phenomenon at everyone’s whim, for a price. They make national press as the media reports the Ghostbusters are the cause of it all. Thrown in jail by the EPA, the mayor takes a chance and calls on them to help save the city. Unbeknownst to all, a long dead Gozer worshiper (Evo Shandor) erected a downtown apartment building which is the cause of all the paranormal activity. They find out the building could resurrect the ancient Hittite god, Gozer, and bring an end to all of humanity. Who are you gonna call to stop this terrible world-ending menace?
Our Thoughts on Ghostbusters (1984)
When I mentioned this prompt to Michele she immediately responded, Ghostbusters and ‘Slimmer.’ Yes, it fit perfectly!
Ghostbusters was an incredibly huge smash hit on its original release back in `84 and its not hard to see why – its a funny , exciting and imaginative thrill ride. There is a lot to like about ghostbusters , like bill Murrays constant and always funny wise cracks, the films constant shift from a light hearted comedy to intense ghost busting thriller and of course , the technically flawless attack of the marsh mallow man that is probably one of my favorite parts of this film.
In this day and age of computer generated FX wizardry the completely practicall special effects still look great (especially the Stay Puft marshmallow man, its rampage through the city looks incredibly real!) and the film it self is still better and more imaginative than a lot of event movies you will find in a cinema near you today.
Ghostbusters is a film that truly deserves its iconic status.
8 out of 10 stars
Trivia
Almost none of the scenes were filmed as scripted, most had at least one ad-lib. Most of Bill Murray‘s lines are ad-libs.
In the middle of the film’s initial release, to keep interest going, Ivan Reitman ran a trailer that was basically the commercial the Ghostbusters used in the movie, but the 555 number was replaced with a 1-800 number, allowing people to actually call in. Callers got a recorded message of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd saying something to the effect of “Hi. We’re out catching ghosts right now.” They got 1,000 calls per hour, 24 hours a day, for several weeks.
Sigourney Weaver recalled: “I once had a fire in my apartment [after the movie], and the firemen came to put it out. One of them opened up my refrigerator and said, ‘Whoa, you better call the Ghostbusters.'”
Harvey Comics, creator of Casper, sued the producers, claiming the ghost in the logo was too close to the Casper character “Fatso”. The court ruled against them, stating there were only so many ways to draw a ghost.
On the set, Dan Aykroyd referred to the “Slimer” ghost as the ghost of John Belushi. Slimer’s gluttonous eating was based on Belushi’s cafeteria scene in National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978).
The movie’s line “Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!” was voted as the #68 of “The 100 Greatest Movie Lines” by Premiere in 2007.
