Friday, March 13, 2026

GHOSTBUSTERS (1984)

"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!"

New York City, 1984. Three Paranormal Studies professors at Columbia University get a call that there’s a ghost lurking in the basement of the New York Public Library. Usually calls like this end up being nothing, but this time around, they encounter an actual real ghost! So, uhhh, what do they do now? They never thought this far ahead.

It would be difficult to talk about popular American Cinema of the 1980’s and not mention GHOSTBUSTERS. I was just a sexy little kid back in 1984, but I remember straight tripping balls over GHOSTBUSTERS! (And GREMLINS, since they were both released on the same day.) The story, the special effects, the music, the fucking demon dogs. It was all so...cool! And strangely enough, watching it again for this review, the movie still holds up. Yeah, it’s obviously dated (and younger generations would probably shit all over it), but for the most part it’s a totally watchable and enjoyable film.

I doubt there’s anything I can say about GHOSTBUSTERS that hasn’t already been said a billion times before, so if you haven’t seen it, just watch it. Especially if bustin’ makes you feel good. If nothing else, it’s a great example of impressive editing and storytelling. The movie just flows with no slow parts. It’s always moving forward.

[Post- review comment: I remember on the week that GHOSTBUSTERS came out on VHS (October, 1985), I went to my local Hastings and when I walked around the corner to the New Release section, there was like 300 VHS copies of GHOSTBUSTERS taking up and entire wall! It was so fucking rad. What a stupid, worthless piece of shit child I was to not have a smart phone on me to take a picture with. No wonder my family hated me so much.]

Part 2 - Ghostbusters II (1989)
Part 3 - Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021)
Part 4 - Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
Reboot 1 -Ghostbusters (2016)