Cloaked Critic Reviews Ghostbusters

!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Well, it's October folks! Halloween is just right around the corner, and that means it's time to indulge in all things spooky, scary, arcane, supernatural, and just doggone freaky. To kick off our month of haunting features I've decided to start with the 80's supernatural comedy classic, "Ghostbusters"!

This is the popular movie that started the beloved franchise that many people cherish...though personally, I'm more of a fan of the cartoon series that followed this film, but I'll talk more about that in a later review. Now I'm pretty sure we all know the story. This movie was released back in 1984, and features a band of awkward scientists (and a black guy) who start up a ghost-catching business. Business is going great until a Sumerian god of destruction shows up looking to cause trouble. There's a bit of a skirmish with some hell-hounds, an androgynous-looking female god-demon thing, a giant marshmallow man shows up, the Ghostbusters cross the streams, and save New York. Like I said, I'm pretty sure we're all familiar with the story since this is a very popular 80's classic starring some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Now even though this movie is very funny, exciting, and was well-received by audiences, I'm afraid it wins no awards for originality. In fact, this movie is something of a rip-off, because the premise and even the name of the film was swiped from a 1975 live-action kids' show called "The Ghost Busters". The series was created by Filmation and featured a pair of bumbling detectives (and a gorilla) who would investigate ghostly occurrences. The 1984 film is of course unrelated to the live-action kids' show, but they do share a couple of vague similarities. The most obvious parallel being the name of both productions. Columbia Pictures paid Filmation for the license to use the name and then tried to differentiate from the kids' show by merging the words "Ghost" and "Busters", but nevertheless the name is the most shameless rip-off of them all. Another thing which seems "borrowed" from the 1975 show is the advanced type of technology used by both groups to combat the ghosts. One might arguably say that the movie's "proton packs" were somewhat inspired by TV show's "Ghost Dematerializer"...of course being something of a pseudo-scientific mind I'd argue that the "Ghost Dematerializer" ironically seems more scientific than the proton packs and containment unit, as the "Ghost Dematerializer" apparently zapped the ghost back to another dimension while the proton packs and containment unit would most likely just turn New York City into another Chernobyl. There might also be a connection between the names of Egon Spengler from the movie and Eddie Spencer from the show, but I could just be shooting in the dark with that one.

I know I said I was going to talk about the cartoon series in another review, but I feel I should reference the cartoon in order to help give context to the movie. For example, Peter Venkman's personality differs quite a bit from the movie to the cartoon. Peter's personality was toned down a bit for the cartoon series (this was of course to make it suitable for television standards of the time), but in the movie Venkman is a straight-up wise-cracking sex-crazed asshole...this is largely because he's played by Bill Murray. At the beginning of the movie, you probably wouldn't be too far off calling Venkman a sexist womanizing pig, as the first scene we see him in features him administering a one-sided ESP test to two volunteers where he gives the girl a free pass while giving the guy the electric shock even when he gets it right, and of course it wouldn't appear his character developed much come the film's conclusion since the sequel reveals He and Dana didn't stay together for too long afterwards. The other Ghostbusters' personalities differ somewhat between the movie and the series as well. Egon is made out to be a more sophisticated level-head genius in the cartoon where in the movie he's more of an awkward, yet responsible college nerd. Ray's character is exaggerated in the series to the point where he often seems like a major man-child while his immaturity was more moderate in the movie. Winston Zeddemore's character is portrayed as a seemingly younger Ernie Hudson, and of course Slimer becomes the Ghostbusters' friend where he was a minor antagonist in the film.

Truthfully, there is little I can say about this movie which is not praise, though I will confess that apart from my preference of the cartoon I much more enjoy the sequel as the story is more compelling, the action is more intense and so are the laughs.