I was wandering around my grandparents’ house one day while my cousins were watching this movie and stumbled into the room just in time to see Rick Moranis being chased down by that dog thing. That was very traumatic for a five-year-old, as you might imagine (I had almost identical experiences with Beetlejuice, the Crow, and Interview with a Vampire). I watched the cartoon for a number of years before I made the connection and stopped watching the show because I was, once again, scared out of my mind. Up until I was about thirteen, I would periodically turn on the television and the movie would be on whatever channel happened to pop up. And it would always be at that part. Always.

Finally, I decided to just watch the bloody movie instead of admitting to all of my friends that I was a complete chicken and could we possibly watch another movie, like Carebears in the Land Without Kindness or something?, and I rather enjoyed it. I mean, how could I not have? Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, paranormal stuff; that’s right up my alley. But apparently it didn’t make too large an impact on me, as I didn’t watch it again until my junior year of high school when it was played on the band bus. I fell in love with the movie that night and saw the sequel for the first time.

I love Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, I really do. I’m also quite fond of Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver. Always have been. I had no idea who Harold Ramis was until that fateful band trip, but I decided that night that I love him, too. The characters are all very fun. The three original Ghostbusters present quite a range of outlooks, as is generally found in a close trio of friends (at least in my experience). They are all quite intelligent and have deliciously witty senses of humour (of course, both of these qualities exist in varying degrees…). Representing the optimists, Ray Stantz (Aykroyd) gets very excited about his job and tends to act like a young child from time to time. In the pessimistic corner, we have the resident skeptic and cynic, Peter Venkman (Murray). And for the realists, we have Egon Spengler (Ramis), who is your basic manic-depressive mad scientist type (^_^). Later on, they add a fourth member, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), who is by far the most down-to-earth of them all – he only joined because he needed a job and offers a unique, more layman view of the whole business.

The other staff members include Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts), the receptionist with the wonderfully irritating accent (sorry – Texas girl here), and Louis Tully (Moranis), the temporarily possessed accountant. We also have Dana Barrett (Weaver), a rather strong female character (well, that’s up for debate, but she’s not there only to hop in bed with any of the guys [alright, that’s up for debate, too, but at least she had a purpose other than that]), a host of ghosts (ha! I’m so witty!), a couple of evil overlords, and an enormous Stay Puff marshmallow man (thanks, Ray! Who came UP with that, do you suppose? ^_^)

Eee hee hee. That’s why I love this movie. It’s all in the marshmallow man.

Ghostbusters was written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis and directed by Ivan Reitman.

Thanks to The Ghostbusters Homepage for the pictures.

Return forthwith to your place of origin or to the nearest convenient parallel dimension.
Created November 16, 2002