Ghostbusters (film)
"Ghostbusters" is a 1984 film directed by Ivan Reitman that merges comedy with supernatural elements, creating a unique genre that has resonated with audiences. The story follows a group of eccentric scientists turned ghost hunters, featuring a memorable cast, including Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, who deliver lines with comedic wit. The film is known for its blend of humor and horror, showcasing whimsical ghosts and creatures, most famously the towering Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, against a backdrop of New York City. Ghostbusters received critical acclaim, winning an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, and became one of the highest-grossing comedies of the 1980s.
The film's success led to a franchise that includes sequels, animated and live-action television series, and a range of merchandise, from toys to breakfast cereals. While a 2016 reboot received mixed reactions due to its all-female cast, the franchise continued with the 2021 sequel "Ghostbusters: Afterlife," which was well-received. The series has grossed over $1 billion by early 2024, demonstrating its lasting appeal. Overall, "Ghostbusters" not only entertained but also influenced Hollywood's approach to big-budget films by incorporating humor into traditionally serious genres.
On this Page
Ghostbusters (film)
Capitalizing on the popularity of science-fiction movies of the 1970s and 1980s, such as the Star Wars and Alien series, director Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters (1984) created almost a separate genre by mixing equal parts spoof comedy and scary situations with traditional elements of supernatural films, including monsters, gremlins, and spirits. The flitting ghosts and slimy creatures of Ghostbusters provide more comedy than horror, and the characters handle bizarre situations with comedic wit and mock-seriousness. They thereby concocted one of the most financially successful comedies of the 1980s, one that spawned a handful of sequels and created a large audience of admirers.
The film’s special effects and studio work were seamlessly integrated with location shooting in New York City to provide an apocalyptic finale that threatened a believable urban setting with demonic invasion. In perhaps the film’s most famous sequence, Manhattan is threatened with destruction by a gigantic Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. (Ghostbusters won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.) This combination of realism and supernatural effects, fright and fun, appealed to the wide audience that drove the film’s profits.
The knowing delivery of many of the film’s lines by Saturday Night Live (SNL) alums Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd caused them immediately to enter the popular vernacular, as they were quoted repeatedly throughout the remainder of the decade. Murray and Aykroyd, along with Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, and Rick Moranis, created characters that were by turns likable, sympathetic, and ridiculous—characters whose reactions to the strange things happening to them form the core of the movie.
In addition to its 1989 sequel, Ghostbusters II (1989), the film’s popularity engendered several television series, both animated and live-action. One television spin-off in particular, The Real Ghostbusters, borrowed from fairy tales and folklore to give the material greater breadth and appeal. Ghostbusters’ success also generated a merchandising machine that included toys, video games, fast-food tie-ins, and even a children's breakfast cereal.
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), directed by Paul Feig, rebooted the franchise to wide critical acclaim, but its all-female headliners—Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Kristen Wiig—received sexist backlash. An unrelated 2021 sequel, Jason Reitman's Ghostbusters: Afterlife, enjoyed significantly greater popularity, while Gil Kenan's horror-tinged Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024), released forty years after the first installment, proved a moderate commercial and critical success. All told, the franchise's five films grossed over $1 billion in early 2024.
Impact
Ghostbusters blended wacky humor, dead-pan delivery, scampering ghosts, oddball characters, and escalating mayhem mixed with the trappings of parapsychology. It helped establish that big-budget, effects-driven films could broaden their appeal by incorporating humor and refusing to take themselves too seriously, luring audiences for whom effects alone were not a draw. When the similarly tongue-in-cheek time-travel action film Back to the Future (1985) also became a blockbuster the following year, Hollywood took notice. The three twenty-first-century films similarly contributed to a trend of so-called legacy sequels then becoming popular in Hollywood, with a view toward attracting both nostalgic fans and new audiences.
Bibliography
Chrysostomou, George. “Ghostbusters: Afterlife Shows the Importance of Legacy Sequels.” CBR, 25 Mar. 2024, www.cbr.com/ghostbusters-afterlife-legacy-sequel-important/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.
Coleman, John. “Ghostbusters.” New Statesman, vol. 108, 7 Dec. 1984, p. 35.
Grebey, James. “How Ghostbusters: Afterlife Fits into the Long-Running Franchise.” Time, 17 Nov. 2021, time.com/6120053/ghostbusters-afterlife-franchise-explained/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.
Kael, Pauline. “Ghostbusters.” The New Yorker, vol. 60, 25 June 1984, p. 104.
Klein, Brennan. “Ghostbusters Officially Becomes a Billion Dollar Franchise at the Box Office.” ScreenRant, 24 Mar. 2024, screenrant.com/ghostbusters-franchise-box-office-billion-dollars/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.
Maddox, David. “The Ghostbusters Once Had an Officially Licensed Cereal.” CBR, 23 Nov. 2022, www.cbr.com/ghostbusters-childrens-cereal-franchise-dark-horse/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.
Schickel, Richard. “Ghostbusters.” Time, vol. 123, 11 June 1984, p. 83.
Sims, David. “The Fans Aren’t Always Right.” The Atlantic, 1 Apr. 2024, www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/04/ghostbusters-frozen-empire-legacy-sequels/677936/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.
Welch, Alex. “What Happened to the Ghostbusters Franchise?” Digital Trends, 26 Mar. 2024, www.digitaltrends.com/movies/what-happened-to-ghostbusters-franchise/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2024.