Ivan Reitman’s Ghostbusters is one of the most celebrated and iconic comedies ever made. The perfectly matched cast of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson elevated the simple premise of a bunch of guys busting ghosts to comedy gold. The movie has countless memorable quotes and scenes that fans still talk about to this day.
While its sequels have been nowhere near as well-received, the original Ghostbusters movie from 1984 still holds up today, and there are a number of reasons why the movie remains such a timeless gem.
Family-Friendly Humor
The creative team behind Ghostbusters had previously found success with the R-rated antics of movies like Stripes, Caddyshack, and Animal House, but they went with a family-friendly tone for Ghostbusters.
While an R-rated version of Ghostbusters probably would’ve been a lot of fun, the safer PG-rated version can be enjoyed by audiences of all ages. It’s a prime choice for family movie night.
Ray Parker, Jr.’s Iconic Theme Song
“Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!” Ray Parker, Jr.’s theme song for Ghostbusters is one of the most memorable themes in movie history. The song spent three weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and remains a beloved classic to this day.
The song acts as a sort of advertising jingle for the guys’ ghostbusting business, except it’s much catchier than anything Drs. Venkman, Stantz, or Spengler could come up with.
The Semi-Improvised Dialogue
When Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis were writing Ghostbusters, they weren’t too concerned with the dialogue. Coming from a background in improv and knowing they’d be co-starring with Bill Murray, they expected a lot of the movie’s lines to be ad-libbed during production.
Rigidly written dialogue that actors perform to the letter can get stale quickly, but Ghostbusters’ semi-improvised dialogue has a spontaneous energy that still holds up today.
David E. Blewitt & Sheldon Kahn’s Sharp Editing
When editing is done well, the audience doesn’t notice it, because they get swept up in a well-paced narrative. David E. Blewitt and Sheldon Kahn’s editing of Ghostbusters is particularly sharp.
Blewitt and Kahn keep the plot moving along at a brisk pace, so the audience is never too far away from a big laugh or some action-packed spectacle.
The Special Effects
John Bruno, Richard Edlund, Chuck Gaspar, and Mark Vargo all received an Oscar nomination for their work on the special effects in Ghostbusters. They ended up losing to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, but the Ghostbusters effects still hold up today.
In the age of CGI, the shots of swirling spirits and the hellscape in Dana’s fridge look a little rough around the edges, but ghostly creations like Slimer and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man still look incredible.
Bill Murray & Sigourney Weaver’s Chemistry
In a lot of comedies, the romantic subplot feels tagged-on or unnecessary, but Peter Venkman’s courtship of Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters is crucial to the story and works brilliantly because of Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver’s chemistry.
Murray is all over the place in his scenes with Weaver, just like in the rest of the movie, and Weaver makes for a hilarious foil, keeping up with his ad-libs and maintaining the comedic momentum.
The Apocalyptic Finale
A lot of the more negative contemporary reviews of Ghostbusters claimed that the movie loses the plot after the ghostly dimension opens up and malicious spirits fill the skies of New York. But this apocalyptic finale works brilliantly after all the build-up in the first two acts.
It significantly raises the stakes of the Ghostbusters’ struggle against the occult and builds to the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man’s appearance, which is equal parts hilarious and spectacular.
Elmer Bernstein’s Eerie Score
While the theme song was performed by Ray Parker, Jr. and there are a few licensed pop hits on the soundtrack, Ghostbusters also has an original score. Composed by Elmer Bernstein and performed by the 72-person Hollywood Studio Symphony orchestra, the score deftly captures the eerie tone of the classical ghost stories that inspired the movie.
In an interview published in CinemaScore: The Film Music Journal in 1985, Bernstein explained that he created this distinctive sound using the ondes Martenot, similar to a theremin, and three Yamaha DX7 synthesizers.
The Grounded Tone
In Dan Aykroyd’s original script, there were a bunch of Ghostbusters teams traveling across the spacetime continuum. When director Ivan Reitman came aboard, he scaled the story way back with a grounded tone.
In its final form, Ghostbusters is a story about three down-on-their-luck guys going into business together; it’s just that the business in question is vanquishing paranormal threats. The premise might be far-fetched, but the approach is surprisingly naturalistic.
Countless Quotable Lines
Like all the best comedies, Ghostbusters is endlessly quotable. It has lines that are hilarious in any context and lines that are hilarious purely for the scenes they recall whenever they’re uttered.
The movie has countless memorable lines: “I collect spores, molds, and fungus,” “Yes, it’s true... this man has no d**k,” “This job is definitely not worth eleven-five a year,” “We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!”