Ghostbusters – 1984
This was a fun movie from beginning to end. The special effects straddled the fence between scary and humorous, leaning more to the comedic. They could have easily cast the film into the horror genre, except that they were way too funny. When New York is attacked by an interdimensional demon, it ultimately takes the form of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, a giant, white, puffy cartoon mascot in a sailor suit. Its intent was the destruction of everything, but it was enough to make me laugh, even though I’ve seen it all before.
Even the ghosts that were supposed to be scary had an element of humor to them, though if I think about it, there were only three actual ghosts shown in the film. There was the purple floating spirit in the library at the beginning of the movie, there was the green ghost known as Slimer who is the Ghostbusters’ first actual capture, and there is the blue-green phantasm that jumps out of the subway when all the ghosts escape from the containment grid. Sure, we are also treated to a few cool shots of indistinct floating streams of color and floating glowing balls of light, but nothing else with a distinguishable face and body.
But for all that, they were pretty cool. The purple ghost was fantastic as it quickly transformed from a quiet old lady reading a book to a crazy skeleton with wispy white hair. The ghost that came out of the subway was only on the screen for a second or so. But Slimer had significantly more screen-time than the others. He was a disgusting green blob that seemed to be the personification of gluttony. He was eating and drinking everything in sight. The effects team was clever in their execution of the ghost. Looking at it objectively, I’m pretty sure it was a puppet. It had just enough lack of movement. But I loved the way everything it shoved into its mouth passed through it and fell to the floor.
But then there were the stop-motion demons, Zuul and Vince Clortho, servants of Gozar the Destructor. They were probably the scariest things in the movie, though even they were a source of jokes and humor. The use of go-motion animation made their movements smoother than traditional stop-motion animation, but by today’s CGI standards, they still stood out as an effect. Gozar was a really creepy, and yet sexy lady with red eyes and an evil-sounding voice. And more than that, there were menacing black clouds that surrounded Gozar’s temple, and pink and green lightning that shot from her hands.
And lest I forget, there were the Ghostbuster, themselves. Their weapons for combating the spirits, their backpack-sized particle accelerators that fired a stream of highly focused and radially polarized protons were very cool. They looked like bright and colorful lightning-laser-guns. It was a great effect! In all, the effects were far better than that year’s Oscar winning film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. They were much more seamless and, dare I say, realistic. I f you ask me, I think this movie got robbed!