Ghostbusters (1984)

Slashers

Here on Slashers, there is No April, Only Zuul. That’t right human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! An ENTIRE MONTH of Ghostbusters content!

This film was originally written by Dan Aykroyd. It was admittedly a bloated, overly expensive movie for someone with his pull in the industry at the time. Then came Harold Ramis to help parse the script down to something financially viable. Truly, short of a Troma movie, I have never come across a more fluid script in doing this show. A simple search online will reveal numerous drafts of the script, that changed all through shooting, and Bill Murray’s omnipresent improvisation.

The film came from the Aykroyd family’s longstanding fascination and involvement in the paranormal, the occult, and technology (his grandpa, Maurice, tried to make a ghost telephone). Dan often said his two greatest obsessions as a kid were the incorporeal and law enforcement. As you trace the drafts of the script back to the original, this movie was a perfect amalgamation of the two, that became a perfect-er other thing.

Directed by Ivan Reitman, who voiced several characters in the film, and helped shape this into the most successful comedy of all time… until Macaulay Macaulay Culkin Culkin (Yes, he changed his middle name from Carson) and Home Alone.

Rarely do we get into alternate casting, but it seems that each and every part in this film aside from Aykroyd’s Ray Stantz was almost played by someone else. We truly almost had a film with Michael Keaton, Eddie Murphy, and John Candy… which makes me want that TV remote from Rick and Morty. Even casting the people in the film was weird, with some acting like dogs and another leveraging his role into making a remake of Razor's Edge, which flopped harder than Ray's fleshy member in that cringy scene in the bed with the ghost... you know the one.

We also talk about the hugely expansive and intricate cinematic universe for this film including Caddyshack, Casper, Beetlejuice, and Little Shop of Horrors!?

We talk about shooting locations for the film, spanning from Los Angeles to Firehouse, Hook & Ladder Company 8 of the NYCFD on 14 North Moore Street. What a nice change of pace from every other movie shot in Georgia and Toronto these days.

Did you want to know how the special effects and equipment came to be? So did we, so we researched it and then talked about it. Spoiler alert, it was basically one overworked under-credited guy named Stephen Dane, who did it all in like two weeks. How many Ecto-1's did they make for the movie? What was Slimer's original name? And then his other name? Speaking of names, what was almost the name of this film?! WHY DID THEY STEAL THE NAME FROM TWO JOKERS AND THEIR PET APE FROM A 1975 TV SHOW?! ...trust me, we get into it.

On this episode we talk everything from the production, to the casting, with inspirations and lore in between. You even get a dramatic rendition of Sigourney Weaver’s poem she wrote and performed at the wrap party after shooting ended.

This week’s “Hidden Track” is Eye Roller by Lovebreakers. If you want to stalk them online, the easiest way is through their website, http://www.LOVEBREAKERS.co.uk/, which has links to all their social media.

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Theme song is I wanna Die by Mini Meltdowns. https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ZAk6lUDsaJj8EAhrhzZnh ; https://minimeltdowns.bandcamp.com/

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