Ghostbusters - 
15th Anniversary Edition
 (1984)
review by Billion $ Baby

"Back off man, I'm a scientist."

Yes, yes, I know. Look, it's got ghosts in it, hasn't it?! Remember the cab driving zombie? This $32 million supernatural comedy from the people who helped
provide Saturday Night Live and National Lampoon is
one of the most fascinatingly outrageous films ever made. I've always thought so anyway.

Ivan Reitman is on top form here as a comedy director after his work on the mighty Animal House and on Meatballs and Stripes. The draft script was originally called Ghost Smashers and it was to star Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi. After the sad death of John Belushi, Reitman saw Ackroyd's script and as he's said,"...there was one fabulously brilliant idea which was that there was a group of men who worked much like firemen who could catch ghosts."

Reitman pitched the idea to Colombia Pictures who accepted the idea immediately and in just three weeks, Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyd had written a new draft script. Although they were still writing it as they were shooting. Both Ivan and Harold wanted to showthe origins of the team, rather than just showing the team in full ghost catching activity, and the dialogue and actions were often improvised as the guys worked around the script.

Dan Ackroyd was to play the heart (Dr Ray Stantz), Harold Ramis the brain (Dr Egon Spengler), and Bill Murray the mouth (Dr Peter Venkman) of the Ghostbusters team. Sigourney Weaver was Dana Barret, the foil for much of Murray's one-liners and romantic intentions. Weaver was keen to do a comedy and got on very well with Murray. The role of Louis Tully, the nerdyaccountant down the hall, was to be played by John Candy but I'm glad that Rick Moranis got the gig because he does an excellent job in this reasonably minor role. Especially during that "party" sequence at his apartment!

Gothic building structures and statues are a runningtheme that appear throughout the film, and the way that the film was often shot on the public streets of New York makes me love it even more. There's greatchemistry between the 'busters but Bill Murray steals the show and his performance here is my favouriteof his to date. Although Caddyshack and Scrooged both come close!

Ernie Hudson arrives around a third of the way through to provide another one of the few straight roles in the picture. His character is really only there to play the unexperienced guy as a tool to explain matters to the audience but he does well with the small amount of material that he's given.

This is mentioned in the excellent commentary track but you really can't help but notice just how much cigarette smoking you see in this picture. Interesting to note that no-one smokes in the later sequel, yet here, they always seem to be lighting up (bar EgonSpengler with his candy bar addiction!). I prefer it the way it is here but it does seem a bit odd for a film supposedly aimed at children.

The biggest worry for the makers was the BIG villain, Mr Stay Puft, the giant marshmallow man but it works big time and I love him dearly. It's really a lampoon of the Godzilla films or that's always the way that I saw it. After all, when optical effects aren't being used, it's just a guy in a suit walking through a model city. Mr Stay Puft has always fascinatedme since childhood. I just can't stop staring at him when he appears on the screen and I find myself en
thralled by the look on his face when the 'busters fire at him for the first time. Sad but true!

The end sequence on top of the apartment building took place on a huge set and with that and Mr Stay Puft, it's probably the only film to date to spend quite so much cash on something so impressively stupid. I love it! Apparently one review at the time described the film as a "perfectly told joke" and I couldn't agree more. A classic. You've also got to like theway the film doesn't show any credits until the endof the picture. All we see is a film title and no more.

This 15th anniversary edition offers:

- A widescreen print and 5.1 sound
- VERY cool animated menus
- A trailer and a Ghostbusters II trailer
- Several minutes of deleted footage
- An original 10 min featurette with interviews and making-of footage
- A 15 min featurette on the special effects
- Multi-angle sfx before and after comparisons
- Some storyboards and split-screen comparisons
- Photographs of effects and models being created (Yes! Watch Mr Stay Puft being made!)
- Concept drawings
- A VERY entertaining commentary track with Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis and Joe Medjuck. Complete with a
optional and unique (?) silhouette feature where you can watch the guys nodding and pointing at the screen.

BTW The 30 second deleted scene called "Bums" is one of the funniest that I've seen to date. It makes me crease. Big time!

The wry and amusing commentary is a showcase (soundcase?) for this dvd feature. I'd like to share just some of it.

* On discussing the library ghost lunging at the three guys near the start of the picture:

Joe - "It was the one thing that scared the little kids. It's actually the scariest thing in the picture."

Harold - "I thought Bill was the scariest thing in the picture."

* "I knew we needed a great kick-ass song." Believe it or not, that's actually Ivan describing Ray Parker Jr's track! Not so sure about that observation butin all fairness, the track was one of the biggest hits of 1984.

* William Atherton played William Peck, the obnoxious guy from the E.P.A. who wanted to shut the 'busters down and send them to jail.

Ivan - "I ran into Atherton about a year after this film had come out. I was expecting him to welcome mewith open arms because of the success of the film. He became quite famous from the movie and he was genuinely pissed. He said, you know, I can't walk into a bar without people wanting to pick a fight with me. Kids scream at me and make fun of me wherever I go."

Harold - "The worst is...I'll tell it now. Later in the movie, Danny calls him 'Dickless.' Atherton toldme that he was walking down the street in New York and a bus-load of children yelled at him. And he turned and smiled and waved, and they all went, 'Yo, Dickless!'"

Lol! Poor bastard, eh?!

* When Mr Stay Puft is destroyed, the huge amounts of marshmallow that fall everywhere is actually shaving foam. And Atherton gets a huge amount dropped on him.

Ivan - "...just before we were about to shoot that, William Atherton came up to me and said, 'look, is this gonna hurt?,' and I said, you know, I don't really know."

(laughter from all three guys)

So they tried it out on a stuntman first!

There's lots more of that kind of thing on the commentary so check it out if you get the opportunity.

Ghostbusters is a very special comedy and it will always hold a very dear place in my heart. Men In Black? Bah!!!

P.S. Ghostbusters II ain't too hot to say the least! Not even Murray's one-liners, a Cheech Marin cameo and a top Jackie Wilson track can save it.

BTW Ivan Reitman's Evolution is really just Ghostbusters III and like that first sequel, it has it's moments but no more.