Ghostbusted

• 08.04.2021 13:14 UTC+02:00
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That irrepressible bonehead, Jeremy Hambly at TheQuartering, unfavourably compares the upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife with the original Ghostbusters (1984). He notes that the ghosts aren't scary, unlike those in the original, which he describes as a horror film:

The Ghostbusters film was a horror film, and the comedy was in the way that the actors reacted to it. If you look at all the ghosts, they were like legitimately scary-looking.

Jeremy 'Bonehead' Hambly, SJW RAGE Over New Ghostbusters: Afterlife Trailer Featuring Paul Rudd & Baby Stay-Puft, TheQuartering

I don't know how old Hambly is—a good deal younger than me, for sure—but I guess that he first watched Ghostbusters as a kid. In contrast, I was in my twenties. It's been years since I watched it but, as far as I can recall, the ghosts were not at all scary; some jump scares perhaps, but that's a cheap trick and nothing to wax lyrical over. It was not a horror film, it was at most a comedy-horror, or a horror-comedy, depending on your proclivities. In fact, IMDb doesn't even tag it with horror, instead opting for Action, Comedy, Fantasy.

I suspect that Hambly's feelings about Ghostbusters: Afterlife, especially when comparing the Mini-Pufts Character Reveal to Ghostbusters, may be as much due to age as anything else. Pretty much what he says about Ghostbusters: Afterlife was how I felt about Ghostbusters all those years ago. That's just the difference between first seeing something as a child, as opposed to as an adult. On the other hand, he does rank the original among his top three films of all time, if not his all-time favourite, whereas I wouldn't place it anywhere near my top 100. So, perhaps ol' Bonehead and I simply have different tastes.

Whatever the reason, there's just no going back, Jeremy!