While Ghostbusters: Afterlife has been played up as a film filled with the kind of nostalgia that fans can surely appreciate, the “third installment” is not without its faults. And one has to wonder if Harold Ramis (to whom the movie is dedicated) himself wouldn’t be the first to point them out were he still alive. Like, for example, his character’s appearance as a mute ghost (because providing him with lines likely would have “totally” broken the sense of mystery surrounding Egon Spengler within this version of the Ghostbusters world).
As the primary driving force of the narrative, written by Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan (who also worked on the 2015 remake of Poltergeist), Spengler haunts every aspect of Ghostbusters: Afterlife—indeed, that’s where the title seems to truly derive from. For it is Egon’s own afterlife that finally allows him to connect with his abandoned family, namely his daughter, Callie (Carrie Coon), and her two children, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace, who could effortlessly portray a young Liz Lemon in 30 Rock). Reitman, who has followed in his father Ivan’s footsteps by directing this latest version, does his best to render the material with care, knowing full well that its devoted following is appraising every frame with its hawk eyes.
Yet with its evocative tinges of Super 8 and Stranger Things (not just because of Finn Wolfhard, but also the flickering lights trope at the beginning), Ghostbusters: Afterlife relies perhaps too heavily on hauntology (no pun intended) to buttress its plot. One that subtly emphasizes the era we’re living in as a destitute and bleak state of affairs. The most obvious callout of this occurs during the only conversation of substance between Trevor and Lucky (Celeste O’Connor), a local girl who works at Spinner’s. In fact, it’s only because of Lucky that Trevor applies for a job there, making a fool of himself to the older guys in the joint as they mock him with the epithet “Casanova” (seems a bit too sophisticated for the “kids of today”—particularly ones living in a town like Summerville, but that’s the element least requiring of the viewer’s suspension of disbelief). While sitting up on top of the mine, built by Ivo Shandor (mentioned to ominous effect in 1984’s Ghostbusters), Lucky asks, “What are you doing here in Summerville anyway?” Mincing no words, Trevor replies, “My mom won’t say it out loud, but we’re completely broke…” To that end, Egon dying right at the moment when Callie was being evicted from her own home does come at a rather opportune time. Regardless of how creepy the house in the middle of nowhere is. It’s still a place to hang one’s hat (or proton pack) nonetheless.
As we’ve seen throughout 2021, the sense of desperation and scarcity affecting all walks of life (spurred by the effects of post-pandemic existence) more than it ever has in the so-called “it can’t happen here” United States is mirrored in the Spengler family’s own fate. Supposedly of the “untouchable” white lower middle class, even they can’t evade being relegated to some backwater town solely because they just so happen to have a ramshackle port in the storm there. And while Marx and Engels may have stated that an integral aspect of communism was eliminating inheritances, that’s one of the few “loopholes” sustaining some in these increasingly dire times. While the 1980s, too, left a large portion of the population—the ones who didn’t benefit from the “wonders” of Reagan’s trickledown economics—struggling, the present era seems to be combining the worst elements of 1930s, 1970s and 1980s poverty phenomena. This includes a fluctuating stock market (prone to the whims of Reddit users), inflation and an intense increase in the discrepancy between the haves and have-nots. In California, the recent rash of lootings in high-end stores like Louis Vuitton, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Burberry in major cities seems to accent this idea of being “fresh out of fucks forever.” What does being “brazen” matter in the face of a system that sets almost everyone up to fail (except those with, let’s say, more “usable” family inheritances)? Why not just take what you want and risk the potential consequences when they can be no worse than what has befallen you already? Another recent image from the headlines to corroborate an overall obsession with money and obtaining it by any means necessary came in the form of the grotesque scenes of people jumping out of their cars to shamelessly pursue thousands of bills spewing out of an armored truck on a Carlsbad freeway. Again, desperation and dearth are the keywords here.
And yet, as Ray (Dan Aykroyd) explains to Phoebe on the phone call she makes to him from jail, the 80s were a “different time,” when people were more optimistic and “willing to believe.” Not just in supernatural activity, but in the idea that humanity could be “rescued.” Perhaps because there was a greater overall feeling of “excess,” the one thing that still manages to get everyone “hopeful” despite being the primary source of what makes the future so hopeless. With the U.S. having overcome the dire stagflation of the 70s, the 80s were a time—further propelled by the beefing up of pop culture [e.g. the founding of MTV] and all it does to fortify capitalism—of promise. Even if not everyone was experiencing it, they were still dangled with the prospect of being able to “climb the ladder.”
In the end, of course, the majority of us are damned to remain as minions like Vinz Clortho the Keymaster and Zuul the Gatekeeper. While the proverbial Gozers of this world control everything we do once given the opportunity. An ever-hungering entity, “Gozer is not he or she” (it is said, though what could be more femme than Olivia Wilde portraying the eldritch?), so much as the very embodiment of the black hole that is a thirst for power. Often synonymous with destruction (specifically of humanity). Here’s looking at you, Musk and Bezos.
“They conducted rituals… Bizarre rituals intended to bring about the end of the world,” Spengler says in the first Ghostbusters. Who knew those bizarre rituals would take Ivo (played by J. K. Simmons) to Oklahoma? Then again, the Unabomber also seemed to know it was the ideal place to conduct freaky deaky “rituals.” Rather than writing an anti-technology manifesto and blowing up buildings, however, Ivo opts to build a temple posing as a mine in worship of Gozer. The being he’s been waiting all his own afterlife to see unleashed. But it was only because of Spengler’s vigilance and scientific innovation that the flurry of spirits—Gozer included—have been kept at bay all this time. Aided by his unique proton pack setup, whenever the spirits try to break free, they’re blasted with a burst of this entrapping energy. This, in turn, creates the effect of the town having an earthquake regularly.
“Maybe it’s the apocalypse,” Phoebe offers as an explanation to Gary (Paul Rudd), her summer school teacher and a seismologist, when he tells her that the constant shaking of Summerville makes no sense as the town does not rest on any fault lines nor a volcanic landscape. And, talking of the apocalypse, Revelation 6:12 is wielded once again in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, this time as graffitied verses (including “And I looked, and he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake. And the sun became as black as sack cloth, and the moon became as blood”) scrawled at the entrance to Spengler’s farmhouse. Heightened by his own little flourish, “This is how it ends.” Later, of course, we’ll know that he meant this quite literally in that Gozer will need to be lured to the farmhouse in order to fall into the giant trap he’s set up in case of inevitable emergency.
While Phoebe, the next-generation ghostbuster carrying on her grandfather’s legacy might have saved Anywhere, USA, things don’t look all that much improved for Summerville afterward. It’s not a very picturesque place, after all—like most of the Anywhere, USAs of this country. And it makes one question what, exactly, it is people are trying to save anymore? The ability to buy artificially-flavored ice cream on a late-night run to Wal-Mart like Gary?
Although the writers were not necessarily aware of how much the movie draws a very clear destitution and “end times” distinction between now and the 80s, it is one of the most undercutting elements of the script. Which might just make up for some of its other shortcomings, including the overly prolonged scene of Phoebe, her friend, Podcast (Logan Kim), and Trevor chasing Muncher (a sort of replacement for Slimer) the first time around. Or that the character development of Lucky never achieves any third-dimensionality, which is part of why her so-called “romantic rapport” with Trevor doesn’t come across as anything noteworthy or even believable.
We also have to wonder if Spengler’s work would have really been so all-consuming as to require him abandoning his family. Or if it’s credible that Ray would have simply let Spengler go off on his own without a fight, considering the close-knit nature of their friendship. In any event, Ghostbusters: Afterlife has made apparent what everyone already knew: it used to be better. Or at least, easier to ignore how dire it all is. And that’s why nostalgia is so fundamental to Reitman Jr.’s present-day version of the movie. Brandished in a manner that goes in direct opposition to what Edgar Wright wanted to get across about the dangers of nostalgia in Last Night in Soho.
