Wednesday, April 20, 2022

45 Movies For 45 Days: 1984

By 1984 I was old enough to notice there might be some good TV shows and movies that didn’t involve cartoon animals and Muppets of various sizes. I spent hours in front of the television in the company of Sesame Street and Captain Kangaroo. But I started to pay attention a little more often when my parents watched their shows. I started noticing things like The Incredible Hulk and The Dukes Of Hazzard. Live-action entertainment was beginning to pique my interest.

And it was a pretty good year for live-action movies. Indiana Jones was exploring the Temple Of Doom, theaters were full of Gremlins, and the crew of the Enterprise was back in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.

Several of the movies that came out in 1984 are on my list of some of the best ever. One of these days I'll make my top 100 list and all of the ones I just mentioned will probably be there. 1984 also had Beverly Hills Cop, The Karate Kid, Police Academy, Footloose, Romancing The Stone, and Splash. All are fantastic movies, in my opinion. Some of them spawned franchises. Some are classics today. But one film released in 1984 affected my childhood more than any of the others…

Ghostbusters.

I didn’t see the movie until after it had been out for a couple of years. I remember that my dad was going to watch it when it aired on HBO a few months after it had left theaters and invited me to watch it with him. But seeing the lady in the library burst into a scary monster was all that my seven-year-old eyes had to see to realize that it wasn’t the movie for me. I hid in my room until he called me back a couple of hours later to show me the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man rampaging New York City. That did get my attention, but not enough for me to brave that monster again. At least not for a while.

It was a year or so before The Real Ghostbusters started coming on TV on Saturday mornings. I started watching that cartoon from the first episode. I loved every second of it. The idea of a group of men that could battle ghosts with proton beams captured my imagination. I had my mom buy me action figures for my birthday and made up my own stories. I bought myself a proton pack with a beam made of Nerf and ran around in the woods behind my house pretending to be on an adventure with Peter, Egon, Ray, and Winston. Slimer was always hovering over my shoulder, waiting to eat every crumb I might have dropped on the ground.

I was a full-on Ghosthead. And I had never watched the movie.

It wasn’t until the announcement of Ghostbusters 2 that I finally got brave enough to give the original another shot. I went to the local video store and rented it. I was probably 10 or 11 at this point. So when I saw that library ghost this time, she was not nearly as scary. I didn’t even think she looked real. I let out a deep and satisfying sigh of relief, sat back, and enjoyed one of the best movies ever made.

Ghostbusters is a paranormal, science fiction, horror-themed film. But, first and foremost, it is a comedy. They could have made a scary version of this same story, but the decision to make it funny and fill it with actors that had cut their teeth on Saturday Night Live was genius. It gives us a jumping-in point with the audience because we know that this stuff isn’t real. It doesn't even look real on the screen. By making it funny, we forgive some of the less than stunning special effects.

Not that all the effects are bad. Some of them are pretty good for 1984 standards. Stay Puft looked as real as he could. The images of some of the ghosts that escaped and ran loose in the city looked pretty good. The two gargoyles didn’t look great. They were going for a whole Harryhausen kind of stop-go animation that I never thought looked quite right even at the time. And it completely takes my kids out of the movie today.

The characters make up for so much of that. We know exactly who these guys are from the very beginning. The personalities of Peter, Ray, and Egon, played by Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, and Harold Ramis, were telegraphed so well that they each filled a needed slot. We had the brain, the tech guy, and the street smart. Dana and Louis, played by Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis, were also great. Moranis adds the comedy sidekick character that he has always done so well.

The one character that I felt for was Winston, played by Ernie Hudson. He was intended to be played by Eddie Murphy. Hudson stepped in after Murphy bailed. He thought he was one of the main characters throughout the movie. Eventually, his character was re-written so that he appeared halfway through the film and given only a handful of lines. Hudson took a bit of a hit with that. But, to his credit, he’s the one that still makes himself available at Ghostbusters events whenever he can.

So, as far as sci-fi/horror it lacks some substance. The story is pretty simple and would be weak if taken seriously. But the fact that this is the bottom layer of a cake in which the top layer is a comedy works just fine. It takes the edge off and makes it so that even though we’re watching the fate of the city, as well as that of the world, we’re having a good time.

It was followed by a sequel a few years later that takes a lot of flak I don’t think it deserves. How often do you get a sequel that compares to the original? Not very often. But it was fun.

And then there is the story of the 2016 reboot that got its legs knocked out from under them before given a chance to stand up. I went to see it in the theater. It was not the terrible movie the critics make it out to be. It was funny and a lot of fun. It doesn’t compare to the original, but I never expected it to. I hope that they get a chance to do another one, but that may be hoping for a lot.

So, in a year when so many of my favorite movies were released, I can say that only one had as big of an impact on who I am as this one. Ghostbusters will always be my favorite 1984 film. It possibly makes my top ten list. Maybe one day I’ll make that list and find out.

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