So, it’s been a fun road for the video companion series to In the Frame at The Escapist, but all good things must come to an end. It looks like this will be the last episode of the series, at least for a little while. It’s been a pleasure.
That said, it’s a hell of a topic to go out on, as we discuss the strange reverential cult that has developed around Ghostbusters, with the wry and ironic eighties comedy increasingly treated as something of a holy text for a certain generation of fans. It’s a very strange illustration of how nostalgia warps and distorts the very things that it claims to remember.
In the final act of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, young Phoebe has a sudden realisation about the farm that her family has inherited from her eccentric grandfather. “This isn’t a farm,” she boasts. “It’s a trap.”
She could just as easily be talking about the film itself. Afterlife is a belated sequel to the original Ghostbusters, consigning Ghostbusters II to a weird continuity limbo where Ray still owns an occult bookstore but there’s no way that that the film’s climax could have happened. The film follows the family of Egon Spengler, his estranged daughter and her two grandchildren, who take ownership of his farm shortly after his death. Inevitably, the family unit learns that the eccentric patriarch who abandoned them in the middle of the night with no explanation really did love them all along.
Blast from the past.
Afterlife is suffocated in a reverential nostalgia that treats the original Ghostbusters as a fetish object. Sure, a casual audience member might watch Ghostbusters as an irreverent mid-eighties comedy that was cleverly skewing Reagan era values, but Afterlife instead sees an earnest classic of American cinema that deserves to be venerated and celebrated as a monument of popular culture. Much like Ivo Shandor erected the skyscraper at 55 Central Park West as a tribute to the Cult of Gozer, Afterlife has been erected as a monument to the cult of Ghostbusters.
It’s telling that the movie’s subtitle is “Afterlife” rather than “Resurrection.” This is not a movie about breathing new life into an existing property. It’s not about finding anything new or interesting to do with these characters or concepts. Instead, it’s about finding a way to tap into the audience’s desire for Ghostbusters nostlagia as a way to wring a few more dollars. In its own way, Afterlife is as cynical as Peter Venkeman in the original Ghostbusters, but at least Venkeman had the decency not to disguise his ruthless pragmatism as earnest sentiment.
Kidding around.
Afterlife is a nightmare coloured in shades of sepia-tinted nostalgia. It is a story about how the best that children can ever hope to accomplish is to emulate their forebearers, foresaking any identity of their own as they grapple with problems that their grandparents singularly failed to resolve. It is a story about how even death is not enough to remove a respected actor and writer from his obligations to a piece of intellectual property, and a reminder of how easily the dead can be animated to serve the demands of the living.
In the world of Afterlife, the dead exist to satisfy the living. This isn’t nostalgia, it is necrophilia.
I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. With the release of Ghostbusters: Afterlife this weekend, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look back at the original Ghostbusters.
The original Ghostbusters was a wry and cynical movie about three academics who find themselves forced to work in the public sector, and so start a business busting ghosts in a run-down and decaying New York City. The film was very self-aware and very glib, essentially built around the idea that three men who would be con artists in any other situation were able to come out on top in eighties America. However, in the years since, Ghostbusters has become an institution. What was once irreverent is now venerated, without any of the self-awareness that made the first film so compelling.
You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.
I’m thrilled to be launching movie reviews on The Escapist. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be joining a set of contributors in adding these reviews to the channel. For the moment, I’m honoured to contribute a three-minute film review of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which will release in theatres next weekend.
This week, I join Ronan Doyle and Jay Coyle to discuss the week in film news. But first, we talk about the films that we’ve watched this week, and what a bumper selection that runs the gamut from Wim Wenders’ Trick of the Light to films like Gotti and United Passions. There’s also an extended chat about the impact and legacy of Cloud Atlas, and the work of the Wachowski Sisters in general.
It is very strange to think of Ghostbusters as a film.
For the past year or so, the word has existed as part of a storm ravaging the pop cultural landscape. It became the source of heightened controversy, its own front in the pop culture wars that had already consumed video gaming and the Hugos. To venture an opinion on the film was to wade into that storm, to chase the tornado and to find your opinion subject to all manner of criticism and second-guessing. If you were interested in the film, you were a raving feminist crushing the hopes and dreams of a generation. If you were sceptical, you were a misogynist.
Rocked and loaded.
With that in mind, it is strange to think of Ghostbusters as actually existing as a film that can actually be watched in a cinema. The film has been the source of so much discussion and debate – so much thought and energy – that it somehow feels “bigger” than two-hour long supernatural action comedy directed by Paul Feig and starring a great cast. Trying to separate the film from that larger discussion feels like a Herculean task of itself, one compounded by the fact that it is neither terrible nor brilliant.
Being sensational or being awful would make the matter a bit easier, because it would tie neatly into one of the two narratives swirling around the film’s production. Instead, it is merely very good. It is an enjoyable supernatural action comedy with a great cast that is always fun to watch, even if it isn’t perfect. In the end, it is just a film. A very good, very enjoyable, slightly flawed film.
‘Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light’ – this is what will happen to those who miss out on the double Jameson Cult Film Club screening of the iconic supernatural comedy, Ghostbusters. The double screening is taking place in a secret venue in Dublin on Wednesday November 4th and Thursday November 5th, rumoured to have its own paranormal activity.
So far, Jameson Cult Film Club have screened Friday the 13th Part Two in an abandoned camp site, Silence of the Lambs in a psychiatric hospital and Predator in a dense rainforest. They even engineered an exploding shark in the murky confines of a closed theatre space for the recent JAWS screening. Now, they’re giving Ghostbusters the same Jameson Cult Film Club treatment.
These free events are much more than just your typical screening, as characters from the movie, live theatre and special effects timed perfectly with on-screen action help to create an electric atmosphere throughout the screening. Expect to see Venkman, Spengler and Stantz batting ghouls along with an appearance by the film’s real stars ‘Slimer’ and Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man.
So are you are troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night? Or experience feelings of dread and despair in regular cinemas or tv rooms? Do you or any of your mates want to be part of a crack team of supernatural elimination agents? If the answer is yes…then don’t wait another minute, grab your jumpsuit, proton pack and log onto jamesonclubfilmclub.ie to be part of the action.
DJ Aidan Kelly will be taking to the decks with sounds from the movie before and after the screening while guests are treated to ‘Slimer’ burgers and refreshing Jameson, Ginger and Lime long drinks.
RT @BudrykZack: James Gunn: We've got a bold new direction planned and I can't wait for audiences to fall in love with Blue Beetle
Zachary…...around... 4 hours ago
the m0vie blog 