Ghostbusters: Afterlife injects some new life into the horror/comedy franchise! The first 1984 film introduced the paranormal quartest. It is referred to as a New York supernatural event in 1984. Then, we had the sequel, Ghostbusters II (1989), but this isn’t mentioned in the movie. There was a Real Ghostbusters cartoon series that went from 1986 and ran for five years. Then, Extreme Ghostbusters (1992). Afterwards, the ghosts were at rest. In 2016, the reboot had the female Ghostbusters. Now, there is a follow up to the original, basically ignoring everything from that time. Jason Reitman directs and co-wrote the film. Reitman, son of the original director, Ivan Reitman, directed the political drama, The Front Runner (2018), and also Juno (2007). Gil Kenan, the director of the reboot Poltergeist (2015) is the film’s other writer. We get the haunting music of the Elmer Bernstein score and then we get a figure with white hair running from the Shandor Mining Company in Summerville, Oklahoma.
He runs past the Spinners diner and towards a farmhouse. The mysterious man holds up a ghost trap (a black metal box with a black and yellow safety strip) and has a foot pedal by a porch post. It activates three mini-silo equipment and the spirit creature pauses as the energy fails. The creature disappears and the man has a PKE meter (used to detect ectoplasmic entities) and enters the house. He rests in a chair and the supernatural creature shows up behind him with a vicious bear-like head. It swallows the man and the PKE meter falls under a chair. At a house, Callie (Carrie Coon) is trying to cut the hair of her son, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard). The actor is of course known for playing Mike Wheeler in Stranger Things and was also in It Chapter Two (2019). Coon provided the voice of Proxima Midnight in Avengers: Endgame (2019). His sister, Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) is working on some tech. Grace was in this year’s horror movie, Malignant, and I recall her in the drama, gifted (2017).
Phoebe is the main character of this film, searching for the family she hasn’t known, intelligent, but kind of awkward socially. Her awkwardness is really in the Sheldon mode, calm, and telling jokes that others can’t understand. The landlord evicts the family and they have to move to Summerfield. They drive to Spinners diner, there are rollerskating waitresses, Trevor takes intrest with a waitress, Lucky (Celeste O’Connor). The actress was in the horror comedy Freaky (2020). He walks into the diner to ask about a job attempting to flirt with Lucky, but he gets the job. The locals like to call the grandfather, a dirt farmer. Callie has her daughter break into the farmhouse, funny!, and find that it is dusty and abandoned. I do like the books stacked in a tall pile formation from the first film. A visitor, Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) explains that she tries to maintain the house, but it has piled on debt. Janine is a returning character from the Ghostbusters movies. The characters and references are sprinkled throughout the film. A tremor has the family take cover under a table. Phoebe notices the PKE meter under the chair.
Trevor checks out the barn and is about to uncover a vehicle. Lucky takes Trevor to hang out with friends at a mountain. They talk about the town on a mine shaft elevator, there is another tremor, so they leap off and a burning entity roars from below! The next day, Callie drives her family, first Trevor is dropped off at his job at the diner, then Phoebe is taken to Summerland Middle School. Callie is about to check on her at the school entrance and runs into Mr. Grooberson (Paul Rudd), a summer school science teacher. A middle school science teacher? Like Mr. Clarke in Stranger Things? Rudd plays the everyman perfectly and is of course Ant-Man in the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. At science class, he plays a VHS tape of Cujo (1983) while Phoebe is met by a young boy (Logan Kim) trying to interview her. This is Kim’s movie debut and his character provides much of the laughs. He reminds me quite a bit like Brian Tyree Henry’s podcaster mixed with Julian Dennison’s school ally of Millie Bobby Brown’s Madison in Godzilla vs. Kong. He says his name is Podcast. Phoebe finds the wooden panels on the floor are like a puzzle box and pulls out a ghost trap, what exactly powers this device after thirty-seven years?
Phoebe brings the ghost trap to school and this interests Mr. Grooberson who is a fan of the New York Ghostbusters. In the school parking lot, they test out the ghost trap, unleashing a ghost. She uses the PKE meter to follow an ectoplasmic source to a barn. There is a firehouse pole and she slides down it to find a room of computers and devices! She finds the ghost trap, a closet full of Ghostbuster uniforms, and also starts working on a proton pack, the Ghostbusters weapon to hold ghosts, but causes destruction. Phoebe has nudges of assistance from a ghost. Trevor has revealed the ECTO-1, the modified hearse used by the Ghostbusters, and starts to work on it. Another day, Podcasts sets up bottle targets as Phoebe charges up the bulky proton pack. We get good closeups of the proton pack that show it powering up which is new for the franchise. She blasts the table and then they track the ghost, which leaves blue ectoplasm on bite marks. Trevor has started ECTO-1 with ghostly help and drives through wheat fields. Muncher is chased away by the proton pack so Phoebe and Podcast ride with Trevor to chase the ghost around town. There is a gunner seat for the car and another modification, but no new tech to bust ghosts. I saw one after credits scene and apparently there is another one. Ghostbusters: Afterlife brings classic nods to the original, a new generation, with some humor and ghostly action!
Four Proton Packs out of Five!
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