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Title: Ghostbusters (1984)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Bill Murray | ... | Dr. Peter Venkman | |
| Dan Aykroyd | ... | Dr. Raymond Stantz | |
| Sigourney Weaver | ... | Dana Barrett | |
| Harold Ramis | ... | Dr. Egon Spengler | |
| Rick Moranis | ... | Louis Tully | |
| Annie Potts | ... | Janine Melnitz | |
| William Atherton | ... | Walter Peck | |
| Ernie Hudson | ... | Winston Zeddmore | |
| David Margulies | ... | Mayor | |
| Steven Tash | ... | Male Student | |
| Jennifer Runyon | ... | Female Student | |
 |
Slavitza Jovan | ... | Gozer |
| Michael Ensign | ... | Hotel Manager | |
| Alice Drummond | ... | Librarian | |
| Jordan Charney | ... | Dean Yeager | |
Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler work at Columbia University. where they delve into the paranormal and fiddle with many unethical experiments on their students. As they are kicked out of the University, they really understand the paranormal and go into business for themselves. Under the new snazzy business name of 'Ghostbusters', and living in the old firehouse building they work out of, they are called to rid New York City of paranormal phenomenon at everyone's whim. - for a price. They make national press as the media reports the Ghostbusters are the cause of it all. Thrown in jail by the EPA, the mayor takes a chance and calls on them to help save the city. Unbeknownst to all, a long dead Gozer worshiper (Evo Shandor) erected a downtown apartment building which is the cause of all the paranormal activity. They find out the building could resurrect the ancient Hittite god, Gozer, and bring an end to all of humanity. Who are you gonna call to stop this terrible ... Written by Chad Grill
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When three parapsychology professors are fired from their university they decide to set up shop as paranormal investigators or "Ghostbusters". Their first client is Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) who approaches the Ghostbusters after witnessing strange visions and hearing the name "Zool" when she opened her fridge. Dr Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) checks out her apartment but finds no evidence of paranormal activity. However, when Dana starts exhibiting strange behaviour, the professors investigate further and discover that the apartment complex that she lives in is a gateway for the occult. With paranormal activity now reaching epidemic proportions The Ghostbusters must now try to save the city against seemingly impossible odds.
I, like many, have fond memories of Ghostbusters as a child and hoped that I would have the same feeling again when watching it as an adult. Unfortunately, I only found moments of this film to be enjoyable rather than finding it enjoyable as a whole.
The beginning of the film is memorable and the 3 professors all seem to be setup as very different characters which generally produces an interesting camaraderie between Aykroyd, Murray and Ramis. The first 20 minutes or so are a lot of fun from Venkman's fraudulent shenanigans to The Ghostbusters chasing Slimer round the hotel. It's explosive and fast-paced, but after these scenes it seems to fall apart slightly and the middle portion of the film bogs down too much with uninteresting and unnecessary scenes (Venkman's creepy stalking of Dana being one example). Rick Moranis' turn as Dana's nerdy neighbour Louis Tully also wasn't particularly funny and was more annoying than anything else. A large portion of their story arc sees them as Gatekeeper and Keymaster in the occult world which was an aspect of the story that wasn't that involving and also one that never really had a particularly satisfying pay-off.
In fact watching this again as an adult I noticed both the plot and the story are extremely thin; there certainly isn't enough of either element to warrant its 2 hour running time. Considering the title is "Ghostbusters" it would have been nice to see more examples of "Ghostbusting" which sadly only seems to feature heavily towards the end. There's also no ignoring how silly the film is for most of its running time, but sadly for me a lot of it was silly in an eye-rolling way rather than being silly in a funny way.
Ultimately with Ghostbusters you're left with a film that has impressive beginning and an impressive ending, but one that has an unsatisfying middle-section which always felt uncertain and at odds with the rest of the film. Older teens (who are prepared to overlook the rather thin plot) may still find this to be quite enjoyable, but as for me I only found some parts of it to be enjoyable and feel that I may have just outgrown it.