The Case of Ghostbusters (1984)
In June of 1984, a ghostly comedy flew into theaters and became an instant classic. Now every spooky season, this cultural phenomenon takes over and demands to be remembered. So, before we close the case on this year’s spooky season, we wanted to revisit one of the biggest and ghostliest movies of all time: Ghostbusters!
This comedy film drew in audiences with its perfect blend of spooky and silly. The concept of disgraced scientists capturing ghosts for a living was just too funny to fail, especially with the likes of Bill Murray, Dan Akroid, Harold Ramus, and Ernie Hudson leading the way. Not to mention Sigourney Weaver, who had survived Ridley Scott’s Alien only a few years before.
So, let’s all hop in the Ecto-01 and bust the history of Ghostbusters!
Summary
Doctors Peter Venkman, Raymond Stantz, and Egon Spengler have lost their positions at a local university. Desperate for money, the three men focus on their research regarding the supernatural and start a business as ghost exterminators. Operating out of an old firehouse, they develop a way to capture and hold spirits. Although their exploits grant them fame and money, they soon discover that messing with the afterlife is no joke.
The ghostbusters (as they call themselves) stumble upon a gateway to another dimension and must stop the beings that intend to use it to unleash hell upon New York. Do these bumbling scientists have what it takes to keep evil at bay?
Making of
In 1981, Dan Akroyd developed a movie treatment for him and his Blues Brothers co-star John Belushi. He got the idea from one of his father’s magazines that he read while staying in his family’s farmhouse. The article that piqued his interest was about building hardware that could freeze the image of an apparition. Ackroyd’s family has a long history with the supernatural, and they would regularly hold seances. So, it was only fitting that Ackroyd write and star in a movie about ghosts.
The would-be movie was called “Ghost Smashers.” It was a horror film with a lot of wry humor, and it followed a group of tough men that acted as interdimensional exterminators. He imagined that he would cast himself, John Belushi, and Eddie Murphy in the leading roles. But that was never meant to be.
The idea of a supernatural comedy was not new, but it also wasn’t popular. Several films in the 1940s saw comedians like Bob Hope and Abbott and Costello blend the genres of horror and comedy. By the early 1980s, horror comedies were no longer in style, and Ackroyd intended to revitalize the concept for a new generation.
Director Ivan Reitman had just found success with two films: Meatballs and Stripes when he read Ackroyd’s film treatment for a supernatural comedy. He was interested, but he had a lot of notes. For example, he wanted the movie to be based more in reality, making it accessible to modern audiences. The first draft was scary and explored different dimensions. The next draft would take place in modern-day New York. Reitman also convinced Ackroyd to bring comedy writer Harold Ramus on board. Ramus had written modern classics like Animal House and Caddyshack, and Ackroyd agreed to bring him on to help write the screenplay for this film as well.
Unlike Ackroyd, Ramus wasn’t much of a believer in the Supernatural, but he had been scared by a ghost story before. He loved the fact that Ackroyd had created a story where terrifying concepts were so mundane. The Ghostbusters encounter otherwise terrifying phenomena with a blasé attitude.
Ramus understood exactly where the script should go in terms of looking at horror through a comedic lens. Together they revised and refined the story, writing all the way until shooting began. The actors didn’t always have written dialogue, but more of a template to go on. There were constant changes, with Bill Murray and Rick Moranis improvising many of their lines.
When director Ivan Reitman met with Columbia to pitch the movie, they asked him what the budget would be. He picked a number on the spot and the film got the greenlight. The studio liked the big comedy names attached to the project, and they needed a film to come out in June of next year, so they decided that this was the one. The race was on to turn an unrefined script into the finished film in just over a year.
Many scenes in Ghostbusters were filmed on location in New York City, while others were filmed on sets and in Los Angeles.
The firehouse was a combination of two locations. The exterior of the firehouse was New York City’s Hook and Ladder Company 8 and the interior was LA’s Fire Station No. 23. Associate producer Michael Gross lived around the corner from the station in New York and scoped it out for the movie. It’s still in use today!
The Los Angeles firehouse had been shut down since 1960 and since rented out for film shoots. John DeCuir, the film’s production designer, chose this location for the interior shots because it matched the New York station’s exterior.
The famous sequence involving Slimer at the Sedgewick Hotel was filmed on location in the ballroom of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, although the hallway scenes were filmed on a soundstage. Like most scenes involving a specter, the footage of the ghost was filmed in Boss Films Studios and combined later using an optical printer. Optical printers were a way of re-shooting film to include special effects and pre-dated digital effects software like “After Effects.”
Special Effects
When Dan Ackroyd was writing the first draft of Ghostbusters, he called up John Daveikis, an old school buddy, and asked him to help illustrate some of the concepts for the movie. He sent Ackroyd an envelope of his renderings of Slimer, the Ecto-1, the proton packs and uniforms, and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Ackroyd had described the character as a demonic combination of the Michelin Man, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and the Angelus Marshmallow Man (a Canadian mascot). It was Daveikis that decided to place a sailor hat on Stay Puft, giving him his iconic look.
Special effects artist Richard Edlund had just left Industrial Light and Magic to start his own visual effects house when he got a tip that Ivan Reitman was making a movie that might require his services. His first project at Boss Film Studios (Edlund’s new company) had fallen through, and he was in need of work for him and the group of artists that followed him from ILM. When Edlund saw the script and the budget, he convinced Reitman, Ramus, and Ackroyd to pair down some of the more outrageous scenes and figure out where their money would be best spent.
Edlund’s effects studio still needed to be built, and to make things even more hectic, he took on another film project at the same time. Boss Film Studios had 10 months to build a studio and complete the special effects for two movies. There were between 300 and 400 people working on the special effects at any given time, with the crew working around the clock to get everything done.
According to Edlund, the most technically difficult sequence in the film was the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and it also happens to be his favorite. The scene combined a matte painting, miniatures, blue screen shots, and model cars that were about a foot long. At one point, a car smashes into a fire hydrant that spurts out sand, but of course it looks like water to the audience.
Bill Bryan sculpted the Stay Puft man, and played the character, too! His colleague Linda Frobos created the final head and hat of the character, and Bryan focused on the suit from the shoulders down. They built the suit out of soft foam, but the marshmallow man’s crotch kept collapsing. So, they had to create an inner shell of L200 foam (which has a similar consistency to pool noodles).
One of the biggest challenges was hiding all the seams and wrinkles, which were pushed to the back, under the arms, and beneath the character’s bib. Multiple suits were built, which also helped hide the seams and wrinkles. One suit had wrinkles pushed to the back while the other had them pushed to the front. A separate suit was created for when the Stay Puft Man catches fire, which was worn by stuntman Tom Cecere.
All of the ghosts seen in the film were created in Boss Film Studios’ “Ghost Shop.” Stuart Ziff was in charge of the department, which had about 60 people by the end of the production. Each of the main creatures had a very different look and feel, and that’s because Ziff hired several different artists to create each character. The practical nature of the ghosts in the movie make them unique from each other, while they might have had a more streamlined look if they had been created with CGI. Although the artists had concept art to work from, it was still a huge challenge to bring the ghosts to life.
The library ghost was played by Ruth Oliver in her human form. Oliver was a well-known astrologer in Hollywood and she only had one other screen credit throughout her career. Visual effects supervisor John Bruno storyboarded the scene, shot it backwards and then printed it forward. He had used this same trick working on the film Poltergeist a few years earlier.
Steve Johnson created the puppet for the monstrous ghost, working off of a design by comic artist Bernie Wrightson. At this point in the film, the audience has mostly seen comedic sequences, so the transformation from the librarian to the monster had to be legitimately scary in order for viewers to understand that this wasn’t just a comedy film.
The artists made a cast of Ruth Oliver, and they molded the foam latex skin. Mark Bryan Wilson was one of the puppeteers that worked on the library ghost. He stuck screws, pipe, wood pieces, and whatever else he could find underneath the fake skin so it would look uneven and protruding. The team also added gorilla teeth in the monster’s mouth.
The puppet could be maneuvered using four levers, designed by engineer John Alberti and his father Nicholas. This limited what the puppet could do, which limited the possibility of mistakes. The inner-workings of the librarian ghost are mostly wood.
The puppet itself took about eight weeks to create, and filming took less than two days. The mechanics worked perfectly, and in one motion, the levers made the librarian’s eyes sink into her sockets, her jaw extend, and her clothes tear away to reveal a horrifying ghostly body. An air hose and a fan blew back her hair to reveal the final form.
Behind the scenes, the infamous green hotel ghost was called, “onionhead.” Two years after Ghostbusters released, he wasn’t officially named “Slimer” until two years later in the TV series The Real Ghostbusters, which is the name that we all know him by today.
Steve Johnson sculpted Slimer, working off of concept art by Thom Enriquez. It took a long time for Johnson to make a version of Slimer that was approved for filming. Over a 12 week period, he made at least 12 different versions of the ghost. Right before the final approval meeting, Johnson got word that Ivan Reitman and Dan Akroyd wanted the ghost to look like John Belushi’s character Bluto from Animal House. Johnson pulled an all-nighter to design a character that fit the description, and Slimer was finally approved.
The Slimer costume was custom made to perfectly fit the body of puppeteer Mark Bryan Wilson, and included a fiberglass helmet beneath the ghost’s head. One puppeteer wore Slimer’s tongue like a sleeve, controlling its movement with his hand. The facial expressions were controlled with bicycle cables and joysticks off-screen. The ghost’s lower body had a wire frame, like a hoop skirt, which made it easier for the puppeteers to contort its shape. Slimer was filmed in front of a black screen with his controllers wearing black leotards so that they would not show up in the final shot.
The ghost was shot between 4 and 6 frames per second, with every movement exaggerated. Miniatures of the character were used in the scene as well, like when he’s spinning on the chandelier and flying across the screen. Ivan Reitman provided Slimer’s vocals, which was the finishing touch on the movie’s most famous ghost.
This entire episode could be just about the special effects in Ghostbusters. The combination of stop-motion animation, miniatures, sculpting, and puppeteering gave this film some of the most memorable and best-executed special effects of the decade. But one of the most horrifying demonstrations of special effects in the movie is the scene when Dana gets grabbed by two massive demon arms through her armchair.
Designer Don Carner sliced up the chair’s fabric and treated it with acid so that it would break away easily. There were three demon arm sculptures created by Steve Neill, with the help of veteran mold-maker Gunnar Ferdinandsen. The stage was built four feet high so that the three puppeteers could fit underneath. They were very careful not to hurt Sigourney Weaver, but she encouraged them to actually grab her head. This made the scene much more terrifying.
Stop-motion animator Randy Cook developed the “demon dogs” that await Dana and her neighbor Louis (played by Rick Moranis).
Dan Akroyd’s originally wanted the ghostbusters’ costumes to resemble sanitation suits, a design that shows through in the final product. But it was Theoni V. Aldredge who designed the iconic uniforms.
Aldredge was a costume designer for several Broadway productions and films, including The Great Gatsby, and Annie. Her Ghostbusters’ designs are likely her most famous, as screen-worn versions of the suits have sold for thousands of dollars.
We absolutely cannot talk about Ghostbusters without talking about the music, right?
Famed composer Elmer Bernstein had worked with Ivan Reitman four times before, even though he was best known for his sweeping dramatic scores. Bernstein believed that the music didn’t need to be comical for the movie’s jokes to work. He blended together the serious, comedic, and romantic elements of the film into a seamless score that perfectly accented the movie. It was the most difficult score he had written for Reitman.
Bernstein’s son Peter orchestrated the score with David Spear. The trio had worked together before, and the process was fairly streamlined. Bernstein would sketch out lines for them to translate onto a score page, sometimes giving very little information while telling them how the music should sound.
Two unusual instruments appear in the score. One is an Ondes Martenot, which is a cross between a keyboard and a theremin. The other was a Yamaha synthesizer DX7 which was brand new and highly sought-after. But since Bernstein had connections, they were able to sneak one out of an importer’s shop and use it right away. The first that we hear in the score was a factory sound that came on the synthesizer. They worked against the clock and the score to the film’s climax and end credits was written the day before the final recording session.
Some of Bernstein’s music was substituted for pop music, most famously Ray Parker Jr.’s “Ghostbusters!”
Huey Lewis and the News was approached to write the title song, but they were tied up working on Back to the Future. So, 28-year-old Ray Parker Jr. was asked instead. The music supervisor told him that the song needed two things: a saxophone riff and the word “ghostbusters.” Parker didn’t know how he could naturally work that word into the song until he saw a pesticide commercial that asked viewers to call their number. It made him realize that if he asked, “who you gonna call?” then a crowd could respond with “ghostbusters,” and he wouldn’t have to sing the word at all.
Ivan Reitman directed a music video to go along with the tune, starring all the main actors with some special guests like John Candy and Chevy Chase. The song was a massive hit and still a featured guest at every Halloween party.
Ghostbusters became a hit for many reasons, some of them being the incredible cast.
As mentioned before, Dan Akroyd was the original Ghostbuster. Not only did he come up with the concept for the movie, he helped write it. The actor and comedian was close with John Belushi, who he had hoped would star with him in the original film. Akroyd has said that he was writing a line of dialogue for Belushi when he got the call that his friend had died.
It made a lot of sense for Akroyd to play Ray, the true believer. Of the group, he had the strongest ties to the paranormal through his family history.
Bill Murray had a reputation for being difficult to nail down. But, he had seen a version of the Ghostbusters script before the rewrites and was interested in working with Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis, who he had worked with at the Second City comedy troupe.
Murray was known as a great improviser and he came up with a lot of his lines on the spot. People that watched him work on the set said that he would get more animated and excited with each take, coming up with more material, until he hit his peak and began to calm down. That’s when Reitman knew to move on to the next scene.
Dan Akroyd says that at least 50% of the film’s success was owed to Bill Murray.
Before Ghostbusters, Harold Ramis co-wrote and directed Caddyshack. He was a huge name in comedy and a major influence to many current comedians. But he will always be remembered best for his role of Egon Spengler.
As co-writer of the film, Ramis added the romantic element of the story. He knew how to ground the futuristic sci-fi elements in a modern-day setting. According to his daughter, Ramis was as well-read as Egon, and he fit the character perfectly.
Ernie Hudson has appeared in over 200 roles, but his turn as Winston is probably his most famous one.
Shortly after working with Ivan Reitman in another movie, Hudson ran into him in an elevator, and Reitman told him about the new movie that he was working on. Hudson didn’t watch a lot of TV and admittedly wasn’t sure who Dan Akroyd and Bill Murray were. But he found out from his agent that the project was called Ghostbusters and there was a part available. It took a lot of work to get an audition, but Hudson turned out to be perfect for the part.
Winston appears on-screen over halfway through the film. He’s the fourth Ghostbuster, a guy who is responding to a “help wanted” ad. Hudson later said that he identifies with Winston more than any other character he’s played, as he’s a reluctant warrior. He’s always felt like the character was on the outside because the other three ghostbusters have been together for so long.
He explained this feeling by saying, “I’ve met a lot of kids of all colors, but especially a lot of the Black kids and Hispanic kids, who say they identify. Because I think that’s a feeling that a lot of kids experience when they are in an environment or went to a school where people are nice but they feel a little bit different. I think it works for the character.”
When Harold Ramis suggested that there be a love interest in Ghostbusters, the character of Dana Barrett was born. Sigourney Weaver had already made a name for herself in Ridley Scott’s Alien, but she wanted the chance to be in a comedy.
Weaver immediately impressed Reitman when she suggested that Dana be possessed by the demon dogs in the film. She got on all fours and demonstrated how that would look. Reitmen went to Ramis and they immediately added it to the script.
Weaver worked well with Bill Murray. The moment they met, Murray reportedly picked her up and threw her over his shoulder and carried her down the street. She was taken with him and they became great scene partners. They both improvised the scene where they meet in Dana’s apartment for the first time.
Rick Moranis was not the first choice for Louis Tully, Dana’s nerdy neighbor. In fact, the character was meant to be played by John Candy. But, Candy didn’t seem to understand what Reitman wanted with the character, and he was replaced by up-and-coming comedian Rick Moranis.
When Moranis took on the role, he reshaped the character, who was originally meant to be a swinging bachelor. Moranis improvised a lot of his lines, pulling inspiration from a nerdy character that he had played on Second City Television (SCTV). Although he had been in other projects, Ghostbusters was his first big Hollywood film.
Annie Potts had been in a few things before Ghostbusters but this was her first major role. Afterwards she became a bit of a tv star as she appeared in many different shows like Magnum PI, Joan of Arcadia, Ugly Betty, Boston Legal, and Law and Order: SVU. She has most recently landed a major role in Young Sheldon as his Meemaw.
In Ghostbusters her dry sense of humor plays well against the guys.
Reception and Impact
Ghostbusters premiered in June of 1984, and made $13.6 million on its first weekend. It spent five weeks at number one pulling in over $229 million, making it the second highest grossing movie of the year behind Beverly Hills Cop.
Reviews for Ghostbusters were largely favorable when the movie debuted. Roger Ebert rated it a 3.5 out of 4, noting that it's a unique instance of a blockbuster that successfully blends "sly" dialogue with extraordinary effects. It is "an exception to the general rule that big special effects can wreck a comedy," according to Ebert, who pointed out that the effects were there to support the actors' performances rather than the other way around.
Ghostbusters was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Visual Effects and Best Original Song for Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters". It also received three Golden Globe nominations: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and Best Original Song. Unfortunately it did not win any of these awards but it did win Best Fantasy Film at the Saturn Awards.
Fun Facts
When the movie was panned and scanned for television Harold Ramis often got cut out because he was off to the side in the shots.
There was another version of the library ghost created for Ghostbusters that didn’t make it into the final cut of the movie. It was used later in a film called Fright Night.
The original Slimer suit became damaged shortly after filming and no longer exists. Like the character, it too is a ghost!
There’s a blooper where the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man isn’t wearing his tie. Bill Bryan (who wore the costume) still remembers the moment he realized he had forgotten to put the tie back on while they were putting flashbulbs in the character’s bib. No one on set noticed, and Bryan later told the associate producer, who reassured him that no one else would notice.
One of the earliest screenings of Ghostbusters was at the school that Harold Ramis’ daughter attended. He arranged to show the film there at a benefit, which turned out to be a great testing audience.
Conclusion
Ghostbusters came at exactly the right time. It pulled in audiences with some of the most popular comedians of the 1980s, and amazed them with a perfect blend of humor and horror. This film is unbelievably quotable, with lines like, “we came, we saw, we kicked its ass!” and “Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say yes” as well as many others.
This is a film with staying power. Sure, some of the humor hasn’t aged well, but the concept of teaming up with your best buddies to take down supernatural forces from another dimension while making quips will always appeal to audiences. Ghostbusters found a way to take the strange and sinister and make it not only mundane, but hilarious. And it’s because of this that there will always be only one answer to that fateful question: Who you gonna call?
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