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Remastered video, a scrapbook, and two episodes from the 1988 animated series Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters are the new features this two-disc set brings to owners of the previous, individual DVD releases of these comedy blockbusters. But you can't beat the price for two Ghostbusters movies -- the first of which ranks as a period classic. Ghostbusters, the first comedy to gross over $200 million, is just as awesomely funny -- and as quotable -- as Caddyshack. The proton-packing trio of Ray, Egon, and Peter (Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Bill Murray) possess a marvelous three-element chemistry, and one regrets that the experiment ended after the 1989 sequel. Murray -- whose career highlight to that point had been as Caddyshack’s loopy Carl Spackler, gets to show his intelligence here, acting as the audience's skeptical surrogate. His future as Hollywood’s go-to guy for cynical deadpan wisecracks is cemented here. The 1989 sequel ups the slime quotient considerably, as New York's bad karma provides a breeding ground for evil spirits. The now disgraced and disbanded Ghostbusters reunite to save the baby of Peter's former girlfriend (Sigourney Weaver) from being possessed by the spirit of a 16th-century madman, who threatens to unleash a "season of evil." The effects are impressive, but the jokes aren't as sharp. Still, it's fun to have the boys back in action. This is the first time both films have been packaged together on DVD. As one nonplussed New York dockworker observes in Ghostbusters II when the ghost of the Titanic appears, "It's about time." Donald Liebenson

All Movie Guide

Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson star as a quartet of Manhattan-based "paranormal investigators." When their government grants run out, the former three go into business as The Ghostbusters, later hiring Hudson on. Armed with electronic paraphernalia, the team is spectacularly successful, ridding The Big Apple of dozens of ghoulies, ghosties and long-legged beasties. Tight-lipped bureaucrat William Atherton regards the Ghostbusters as a bunch of charlatans, but is forced to eat his words when New York is besieged by an army of unfriendly spirits, conjured up by a long-dead Babylonian demon and "channelled" through beautiful cellist Sigourney Weaver and nerdish Rick Moranis. The climax is a glorious sendup of every Godzilla movie ever made-and we daresay it cost more than a year's worth of Japanese monster flicks combined. Who'd ever dream that the chubby, cheery Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man would turn out to be the most malevolent threat ever faced by New York City? When the script for Ghostbusters was forged by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, John Belushi was slated to play the Bill Murray role; Belushi's death in 1982 not only necessitated the hiring of Murray, but also an extensive rewrite. The most expensive comedy made up to 1984, Ghostbusters made money hand over fist, spawning not only a 1989 sequel but also two animated TV series (one of them partially based on an earlier live-action TV weekly, titled The Ghost Busters. Hal Erickson

All Movie Guide

Ivan Reitman's sequel to the phenomenally successful Ghostbusters is looser and more self-assured than the original. The film opens with a title reading "Five Years Later" and finds the ghostbusters living in hard times. A restraining order has forbidden the boys to partake in paranormal warfare, and as a result they have had to seek other lines of work. Ray (Dan Aykroyd) and Winston (Ernie Hudson) spend their time performing at children's' birthday parties, and Egon (Harold Ramis) is busy conducting experiments investigating the effect of human emotions on the environment, leaving ghostbusting behind. Venkman (Bill Murray) and Dana (Sigourney Weaver) have split up. Venkman now hosts a local cable show called "The World of the Psychic." Dana, now divorced and the mother of a little baby named Oscar, works as an art restorer in a museum -- and this is where the plot kicks in. While Dana is restoring a portrait of a 16th-century tyrant by the name of Vigo the Carpathian, the portrait becomes hexed. The evil Vigo wants to return to life by taking over the body of Dana's little child. Vigo has enlisted Dana's boss, Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol), to compel Dana to cooperate. Soon dirty sludge and slime flow through the streets of Manhattan, and the ghostbusters have to reunite to save the city from a funky paranormal evil. Paul Brenner

Product Details

• UPC: 043396051607
• Source: SONY PICTURES
• Region Code: 1
• Aspect Ratio: Pre-1954 Standard (1.33.1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English, Français, Español
• Subtitles: English, Français, Español, Portugais, Korean, Thai
• Time: 3:33:00
• Sales Rank: 4,846

This set contains DVDs which may be available separately:

• Ghostbusters
• Ghostbusters 2

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