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.

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, a giant Slor, an outstanding cast all knocking out legendary performances, many quotable lines, zero nudity, zero gore, zero blood but lots of slime, lots of cool-looking ghosts, a giant Twinkie, a pissed off marshmallow, a rocket ship pace that makes me wish the movie was longer, tons of iconic scenes, awesome New York City locations and sets (I love the few scenes at the NYC Library, so badass!), real smoked salmon from Nova Scotia, Canada, $24.95 a pound, a great theme song (that seems to sound a lot like Huey Lewis and the News), a man with no dick and, if that’s not enough for you…the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants! 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)

ZOMBIELAND (2009)

"I'm in Garland, Texas. It may look like zombies destroyed it, but that's actually just Garland."

This movie was disappointing. I watch a lot of zombie movies and read a lot of zombie novels (go buy "The Rising" by Brian Keene right now) and for some stupid reason I actually thought, based on the trailer and word-of-mouth, that this movie was going to have some badass, high-budget zombie action in it. Instead, ZOMBIELAND is a poorly written story about a dweeb, a semi-hot chick, the semi-hot chick's little sister and Woody Harrelson on a road trip across America after the zombie apocalypse.

My biggest problem with the movie are the lame jokes. I have no problem with a comedy set in the zombie world (THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD is one of my favorite movies of all time), but at least be funny! My second biggest problem is the lack of zombies. For a world taken over by zombies there's not many of them around. At the very beginning there's a little zombie action, but it's silly and played off more as a lame joke. It's like the zombies are just a nuisance instead of an actual threat. Then, for a long period in the middle there's only probably 6 zombies for like 45 minutes. Another problem here is how smug and slick this movie thought it was with the high speed camera action shots and the annoying "Rules" popping up all over the joint non-stop. They thought they were being clever, but after the 5th time it was just annoying.

I give the movie a little credit for at least trying, but it's still a failure. It felt like the filmmakers were trying to cash in on the zombie fad without actually being zombie fans...kinda like Christian music is always a watered-down, soulless rip-off of popular music. If you want my advise, just skip this dead duck and watch INFESTATION instead. I actually like that movie: the geek endearing, the story was interesting, the action was more entertaining and the hot chick was way hotter. Plus, there was a spider-dog!

Part 2 - Zombieland: Double Tap (2019)