Fortunately for life as we know it, the Ghostbusters are on the scene. They consist of wise guy skirt-chaser Bill Murray, straight-man know-it-all Harold Ramis, adventure-seeking Dan Aykroyd, and token black man Ernie Hudson. Their sarcastic secretary is Annie Potts. William Atherton plays the much-despised EPA bureaucrat Walter Peck. David Margulies is the mayor who lets the Ghostbusters out of jail.
Slavita Jovan is the evil punk goddess Gozer, voiced by director Ivan Reitman in his best imitation of Mercedes McCambridge from The Exorcist (1973). Blonde hottie Jennifer Runyon, future siren of "Charles in Charge," has an early cameo.
Best known as a producer, e.g. Animal House, Ivan Reitman serves as director, as he did in two prior Bill Murray comedies, Stripes and Meatballs. The script is credited to two of the ghostbusters, Aykroyd and Ramis. Many important cast members are alumni from "Saturday Night Live" or "SCTV."
How others will see it. Ghostbusters was one of the biggest blockbusters of the year. It drew favorable reviews, and even landed nominations from the Academy Awards and BAFTA, though only for its special effects and Ray Parker Jr.'s catchy hit theme song.
Today at imdb.com, the action-horror-comedy has a mammoth 166K user votes and a high, consistent user rating of 7.8. User reviews at the website do reveal a small number of party poopers, but most people find the movie highly entertaining, even if they wouldn't want Bill Murray's character to date their sister or daughter.
How I felt about it. This is at least the third time I have seen the movie. I first saw in the 1980s, when its popularity was such that it was inescapable. Watching the film then was not a critical event, but a cultural necessity. I saw it again around 2000, by which time I had aged enough that Bill Murray's one-liners seemed a bit forced.
The third time is the charm, however, and now am I able to enjoy Ghostbusters almost as much as the proverbial Man in the Street, who is not obligated to write a review afterward. Weaver, best known for her Alien(s) movies, is surprisingly convincing in this comedy. One even feels sorry for her as she tries to kindly put off Rick Moranis, the persistent nerd who won't take a hint. Ironically, the guy finally nails her, and it's the sex of his life (and probably the only sex of his life), but since he's possessed at the time, he won't even have the memory of it. Alas.
Ghostbusters is reminiscent of another 1980s cultural milestone, "The A-Team", in that things often blow up but nobody seems to get hurt, except the Stay-Puft Marshallow Man, who had it coming since he was threatening Armageddon.