Ghostbusters - DVD Review

MOVIE
VIDEO
AUDIO
EXTRAS
OVERALL

One Disc
2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
English Dolby Digital 5.1
English Subtitles
Audio/Video Commentary
Storyboards
Stills Gallery
Design Gallery
Deleted Scenes
Original Featurette
1999 Featurette
Special Effects Team Documentary
Special Effects Demonstration
Original Theatrical Trailer
Other Trailers
Run Time: 107 Minutes
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MOVIE
Rated PG for cartoonish violence, some scary scenes and profanity.

When I was little, I couldn't handle scary movies. One need only look at my Halloween review to find that out. I mean couldn't even handle scary scenes. Hell, Beetlejuice scared me, and The 'Burbs, and Gremlins. (Well, I can surely see why Gremlins scared me way back when.) So I can see that my mother was just trying to protect me. So I wouldn't be scared. That's kinda sweet, don't you think? But it's Ghostbusters! So it wasn't until 1986 that I saw the film. In 1986, it was spun off into the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters. (Incidentally, "The Real" came from the fact that the use of the name Ghostbusters on TV went back to a 1975 TV show called The Ghost Busters with Larry Storch about two men and their monkey that battle ghosts. They slapped a lawsuit on the boys in gray who then adopted the name The Real Ghostbusters figuring that they were the only ones people knew anyway. Filmation responded by creating a cartoon version of The Ghost Busters, called it Ghostbusters, and confused people on a regular basis until the kids wised up and watched the only truly great cartoon on in the '80s, and perhaps one of only three good movie-show spin-offs [the others being M*A*S*H and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer) So, back to the film.
Ghostbusters is the story of three paranormal investigators, the mouth Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) the brain Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) and Ray Stantz, the heart of the Ghostbusters (Dan Aykroyd) who are thrown out of their Columbia University research facility and are forced to go into business for themselves. They become professional investigators and eliminators and work on trying to help Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) a classical musician living on Central Park West who has a little problem with her apartment. One day, her eggs jump out of their shells and begin to cook on her counter. The Ghostbusters get famous for their exploits and draw the ire of the EPA in the form of sleazy Walter Peck (William Atherton) and are eventually called upon to save the city of New York from a disaster of biblical proportions.
Do you remember when Ivan Reitman made good movies, like this and Stripes. Instead, all we get from him is Six Days, Seven Nights (which should be called Almost Romancing The Stone) and Father's Day. This was several comedians at the peak of their hilarity, and I think only Bill Murray has topped his performance in Ghostbusters as Herman Bloom in Rushmore. Rick Moranis, as Dana's accountant neighbor Louis, then later Vinz Clortho, is hysterical, his face makes you think he's in constant pain of some sort and his performance as Vinz is the stuff that full comedy routines are based on (or in the case of Saturday Night Live, full comedy routines which are then turned into full length movies). Ghostbusters skillfully avoids the trappings of becoming a one-note comedy by injecting a very realistic romance between Venkman and Dana, a realistic skeptic just doing his job in Walter Peck and an uncanny ability to scare as well as amuse. Many have tried to do this since and never has it been done with such skill and talent. The special effects are top-notch, with only the Terror Dog looking slightly fake. And what I wouldn't give to have been surprised by the Stay Puffed Marshmallow Man. I can only imagine what the viewers at that first screening thought. It was, unfortunately, spoiled for me by both the cartoon, which featured the Marshmallow Man in an episode, and by my brother Rocketman who managed to see the movie at a friend's house and (then four) gave me scattered and misleading details. "The State Puff Man" "A lion attacks a party" "The Ghostbusters smoke cigars" These were the three details I got from him. Fortunately, though, him seeing it made my mother's ability to deny my seeing it nil. Ghostbusters was watched, and watched, and watched, and watched some more. And it has never failed to produce a laugh from me.

VIDEO QUALITY
This film is nearly twenty years old and it simply looks fantastic. The print has been cleaned up immensely and now looks like a film shot just recently. It's also presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio that, in this film especially, is a big deal. As my widescreen study-guide shows, the pan and scan version tends to chop of either Winston or Egon and in general featured a lot of talking heads where there should've been two people. So, when first Criterion's laserdisc version and then this came out with the beautiful widescreen prints, I was in geek boy heaven. This should've been a two-sided release, however. With all the supplements, and there are a lot of them, the film had to be greatly compressed and suffers from some pixelization in the darker scenes. It's unfortunate, but not a distraction.

AUDIO QUALITY
This 5.1 mix of the film, which I presume was mixed from the 6-channel 70mm audio print, is stunning. The soundscape is full. As always, a powerful score travels to the rear channels, but that's not it. Take special note in two scenes. At the Hotel Sedgwick, when Venkman turns the corner and finds Slimer (or at least the ghost that would become Slimer via the cartoons, but was known as Onionhead Ghost amongst the crew, the Ghost of John Belushi by the press and a class five free roaming vapor by Ray Stantz) Slimer's grumblings come from select speakers, most notably the rear left speaker when Venkman first sees him. Also, later in the scene when busting Slimer, the audio is all encompassing, filling all five speakers with independent surrounds. Very impressive scene. Later, on top of the Central Park West building, during the duel with Gozer, the sound design is also tremendous. On the whole, though, the mix seems too loud with some sound crackling at high range, particularly Ray's voice.

EXTRAS
The best and most enjoyable extra is the full length running commentary with Harold Ramis, Ivan Reitman and Joe Medjuck that is extremely informative in the history of the project and the development, as well as the various production hitches such as the possibility of the title not being allowed to be Ghostbusters because of that 70s TV show. (No, not That 70s Show) A fun option is to be able to see these three on your screen a la Mystery Science Theater 3000 as they give their commentary. Fun.
The deleted scenes are great to see, while not that good on a whole themselves. It's strange though. One of the deleted scenes on the laserdisc does not appear here, nor do many of the deleted scenes talked about in the screenplay. All these scenes, however, make it pretty obvious why they were cut. It's strange, to see little bits of a scene that work so poorly, nestled into a scene that works so well.
There's a subtitle track that offers informative tidbits about the film, most culled from the annotated book of the screenplay Making Ghostbusters, an extremely good book that's pretty hard to find. I recommend picking it up if you can.
The two featurettes are slight but interesting with the original being more of your standard electronic press kit material and the new one more nostalgic retrospective. Both aren't long, so they're worth a look. It's fun to see Sigourney talking about this, her other "Boys Movie Series" and the cast and crew seem to have a genuine love for the film. The special effects info is informative, especially the multi angle version of special effects shots. The storyboards that can be compared to the actual film are a cool feature.
The production photos and design stills are great featuring many abandoned or changed concepts and things of that ilk, but are unfortunately stuck on a fake design table to offer some background during the photos. When are DVD makers going to learn that the audience would much rather have a less pretty composition with a full screen photo or still. So many of them are too small to make out much detail.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Ghostbusters, after all this time, is still near the top of my list of favorite comedies and favorite films. Like Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark, it doesn't age, but stays that perfect moment in time that you remember it being. Hopefully it always will. Oh, and I got my revenge. I did see Ghostbusters in the theater. Sure it was nearly thirteen years after I first saw it on video, and it was a crappy print at a midnight screening, but I got to pretend I was just a kid again, seeing it for the first time, seeing it through others' eyes, and I heard the gasp when the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man first appeared, and how delightful it was to hear people that weren't in on it, experiencing something magical.