No, we're exterminators.
Somebody saw a cockroach up on 12.
That's got to be some cockroach.
Bite your head off, man.
There's one fact about the Ghostbusters
that no one ever seems to remember, especially
when attempting to get a reboot or sequel off the ground.
Ghostbusters is a horror comedy.
Horror and comedy.
OK, who brought the dog?
[SCREAMING]
Most people, especially at the studio level,
just want it to be a comedy.
And it's easy to understand why that might be.
It's more kid friendly, more merchandise,
and more opportunity for commercial upside.
Franchise rights alone will make us
rich beyond our wildest dreams.
However, the key to the entire Ghostbuster franchise
can be found in this delicately balanced
moment of horror comedy timing.
Get him.
In fact, the sequence is so well done,
it's proved almost impossible for any
of the original creators to replicate, ever.
Obviously we're all aware that the original Ghostbusters
is a ciminal classic from the 1980s,
featuring the now Supreme talents of Bill Murray, Dan
Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and Harold Ramis
as the now iconic jumpsuit-sporting, proton pack
wielding, paranormal adventurers known as the Ghostbusters.
The film catapulted all of the principal participants
into superstardom.
For the uninitiated, the film follows a team
of would-be ghost hunters as they
attempt to save the world from an oncoming apocalypse.
That sounds like a fairly straightforward idea.
You'd think you could crank out sequels
based on the idea for 50 years.
They're action comedies with some light scares, right?
What happened, are you OK?
He's slimed me.
That's great.
Actual, physical contact.
While its tone is unlike any other franchise,
it's horror but not too horror.
There's action, but not too much.
Comedy, you got it.
But it's kind of offbeat and very character based.
I hate this.
I like to tortue them.
That's right boys.
It's Dr. Venkman.
Which is exactly what escaped the creators when it came time
to produce sequels.
The library scene in the initial Ghostbusters film is perfect.
It has all of the things it takes
to build a successful Ghostbusters moment.
It has clearly defined characters,
moving through a creepy environment,
but not too creepy.
All of the lights in the place are still on.
And the initial scares are just ectoplasmic goo
and a large stack of books.
It's kid safe but still genuinely eerie.
Additionally, this is all practical.
It's all physically there.
And this goes for the whole movie really.
It's stop-motion, it's puppets, a or prosthetic makeups,
real scares and real laughs.
No shortcuts on either.
There's genuine comedy that comes from Murray's Peter
Venkman, trying to get the goo off of his hands--
or the intensity that Harold Ramis's Egon
is surveying the environment with his scanning device.
If you were to try to do that with CG, where the actor's
eyes aren't lining up correctly, or on a green screen where you
can't interact properly with the objects they are surrounded by,
it wouldn't feel the same.
To say nothing of the fact that there's
a very specific patina of horror comedy
that happens when the titular trio
runs into when they finally meet the ghostly librarian.
This is something that Ghostbusters 2 never even came
close to accomplishing.
Producer and director Ivan Reitman seamlessly
balanced both the real practical scares and screwball comedy
into a tonal amalgamation that is
completely unique from any other horror comedy ever produced.
This is the fusion that created Ghostbusters, the ability
to serve two masters.
Aykroyd and Ramis' script and Reitman's direction
had equal parts horror and comedy.
They knew how to make things creepy and atmospheric
and still have fun.
In almost every version of the Ghostbusters since,
the projects have veered far too liberally into the comedy
side of things without balancing them out with the horror.
Put another way why has there never
been a failed attempt at a Ghostbusters sequel
that was just horror?
Fede Alvarez would make a great and genuinely scary
horror Ghostbusters, Sam Raimi, same thing.
James Wan seems like he's been attached
to just about everything under the sun
since he directed Aquaman.
Where's the James Wan three Ghostbusters trapped alone
in a house with demons and ghosts movie that gets
announced in all the trades, but we all
know is never actually going to happen.
Those will never happen because Columbia Sony thinks
of Ghostbusters as a comedy franchise that just
wears a spooky Dracula cape.
After the global success of the initial Ghostbusters film,
Columbia Pictures attempted to turn the film
into a media bonanza--
toys, comic books, animated TV series, and multiple attempted
film sequels follow over the next few decades.
However none have come close to the success or quality
of the initial installment.
Not viewing Ghostbusters as a horror comedy franchise
is exactly why the original filmmakers struggled
to produce an adequate sequel.
Yes, many people remember the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man,
but very few of them have fond memories of Ghostbusters 2,
largely because Ghostbusters 2 is not a horror movie at all.
Vigo Carpathian-- no, that's not scary.
Pink goo-- in the right hands, that could have been great
but ultimately it wasn't.
I have seen some disgusting crud, in my time,
but you take the cake.
You're-- you're just--
Hey, whoa.
The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is really
the only example you need.
He never played for horror.
He played for laughs.
He lumbers through New York, bumping into things.
Is that scary?
No, not particularly.
He frowns in a creepy way.
Does that scare you?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
The thing that works so well about the initial Ghostbusters
is that they treated the otherworldly elements as alien,
bizarre, and genuinely weird.
In 2, they're played for laughs, not scarces.
The characters and the audience are
laughing at the material, not being creeped out by it
and then laughing as a means of relieving tension.
While Ghostbusters 2 wasn't an outright disaster,
it definitely left a bad taste in everyone's mouths,
including the brain trust of Murray, Ramis, Aykroyd,
and Reitman.
Over the next couple of decades, we never
truly got a direct sequel to the Ghostbusters
because of two reasons.
Number one, Bill Murray, and number two, no one
could agree on a direction.
Multiple drafts were written, even some by Dan Aykroyd
himself.
Every time the discussion would transpire though,
Murray would say that he didn't want to be involved at all.
The primary drafts that Aykroyd wrote
were centered around the idea that the Ghostbusters
would go to hell.
The title of the proposed third installment--
Ghostbusters Hellbent.
This honestly sounds like the perfect direction
to take the Ghostbusters in.
The original Ghostbusters would have been in supporting roles
and a new team of Ghostbusters would
have taken over, led by Oscar, Sigourney Weaver's son
from the previous films.
The various versions and the drafts
saw the Ghostbusters sucked into a parallel world that
is the exact opposite of ours, where they would have had
to contend with Hades, the devil, or just
an unstoppable onslaught of demons depending on the draft.
Sounds like a perfect combination
of horror and comedy.
However, Columbia thought it was too dark and too horror focused
and so it never got off the ground.
Ultimately, we all know where the franchise has been
and where it's going.
Each of those has successes and failures.
But the lesson isn't even about the equals that
were or will be produced, it's about how difficult
making equals that have the very specific and subtle tone
of the first film can be.
We all get what The Exorcist is.
We all get what National Lampoon's Vacation is.
However, when trying to synthesize
how to accurately replicate a highly
successful film over that isn't cut
and dry one thing or the other.
Well, that's where the difficulty lies, right.
Will Ghostbusters Afterlife be the correct balance?
On the surface, the film appears to be
a Ghostbusters by the way of Stranger Things
film, which considering the success of the Netflix
Juggernaut sounds like a really smart way to take the film.
Will it be able to balance all the narrative
aspects that we've discussed above though?
We'll have to wait and see.
The inclusion of the original Ghostbusters
seems to be right on the money though,
even if they are most likely going to be only featured
in a supporting mentor role.
The combination of humor and horror, practical effects,
and genuine cast chemistry makes the original Ghostbusters
something that's nearly impossible to top.
It's a small, quirky film that has a conceptually huge ending.
But when you think about it, it's
just some dudes with car batteries
strapped to their back, picking fights with stray dogs.
And that would not meet the standards
of what needs to be put on screen in order
to rake in a billion dollars at the box office these days.
And maybe that's OK.
Maybe the difficulty in producing more Ghostbusters
films means we shouldn't.
Maybe we should all just be content
with the existing films, lunchboxes, toys,
animated shows, and happy meals.
And so that's all for Nerdstalgic.
Let us know in the comments below what you think.
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