Ghostbusters - Frozen Empire

Icing With Death

Ghostbusters
Frozen Empire
Directed by Gil Kenan
USA/Canada 2024
Columbia Pictures
UK Theatrical Cut

It’s funny... my personal experience with the Ghostbusters franchise has always been a bit of a hit and miss affair. I got caught up in it back in 1984 starting with the song... I bought the 12 inch version of the single (the first record I bought with sung lyrics on it, I think... I was always a soundtrack kid) and quite liked the movie when I saw it the same year on its first cinema release. I didn’t think it was great but... it was okay and I have a lot of affection for it. Not so the sequel, which I remember being appalling. Then, after a gap of more than a couple of decades, the female led reboot was... pretty well made and well acted but, somehow almost completely unfunny (I thought... save for a few great one liners spoken by Chris Hemsworth).

So when Ghostbusters Afterlife came out, during the pandemic I think, I was not invested in it and even waited a fair few months before seeing it. And it was absolutely great. Pitch perfect. In fact, I think it’s easily my favourite Ghostbusters movie to date. However, I couldn’t see how they’d make a credible sequel to that one and so, when Ghostbusters - Frozen Empire rolled around, although I saw it at the cinema on opening weekend, I really wasnt expecting much from it. Especially after hearing Mark Kermode’s damning review of the film.

So I’m pleased to say that this one wasn’t nearly as much of a mess as I thought it would be and, again, I actually quite enjoyed it, to be honest.

For this one, the clan of Spengler descendants return, now relocated to New York in the old Ghostbusters firehouse. So we have the Spenglers next generation of Ghostbusters played by Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard (the Stranger Things kid) and the always incredible Mckenna Grace as Phoebe Spengler, the one most like her grandad (played by the late Harold Ramis in the first two movies). We also have Paul Rudd back and the original team as presented by Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts... plus a few other faces from the old days. Plus some of the other new characters from the previous film who have united with the old gang to work in a kind of Ghostbusters technical centre (they’re like Q section in the James Bond movies)... and a couple of welcome guest stars in the form of Patton Oswalt and the always reliable Kumail Nanijani.

There’s certainly a lot going on but I never got lost and I think, rather than the mess that some critics are presenting it to be, all the story beats from different strands of the movie are nicely interlocking and make sense by the end of the picture. Even to the point where it telegraphs itself in one early scene... as soon as you see a particularly cool ghost character played by Emily Alyn Lind and she gets out a book of matches which holds a single match, you just know how it’s all going to fit in with the denouement of the movie, especially when Nanijani’s character is more fleshed out from around the mid point of the story.

It’s got some nice action beats and a pretty good score by Dario Marianelli, which also uses one of Elmer Bernstein’s main themes from the first film and, sticks to his orchestration style for a lot of the rest of it, I’m pleased to say. I’m also pleased to say that there looks like there will be a proper CD release of the score in a few weeks and so that will be an instant purchase.

Although the film isn’t quite as emotionally engaging as Afterlife, it comes pretty close and I have to say that I am pleased to see that, even without the CGI resurrected spirit of Harold Ramis (although there’s a nice set up to that happening before the rug is pulled out from both the audience and one of the characters), the sequel does pretty well with what it’s got and, honestly, I would be happy if they just kept on making them now.

A couple of odd things I’ll just mention... not really bad things at all, just odd. One is that one of the new characters both looks like and also seems to be playing his character, as a young, mid-1960s Michael Caine, for some reason. I mean... what? It’s like Harry Palmer joined the Ghostbusters! Not knocking it... it’s fun but, why?

Secondly, there is an obvious lesbian attraction between Phoebe Spengler and one of the main ghost characters in the movie, so much so that she temporarily separates her spirit from her body in order to spend some time with her. But it’s really well played between the two characters and... obviously there but, never once specifically mentioned as even existing... it’s like the film wants to ‘almost but not quite’ highlight it and pull back from it at the same time. I suspect there was a slightly different cut of the movie which maybe got buried for commercial reasons... that would be my guess, anyway.

Thirdly, there’s a big set up about all the old ghosts escaping from their holding chamber and returning and we see a shot of them going past the Statue Of Liberty but, not once does the statue get animated in a ghostly manner as I’m sure it did in one of the past movies. It’s almost like the studio deliberately set it up as a visual echo and then... just dropped it for whatever reason (budgetary restrictions or bad CGI would be my best guesses on that).

Also, the climactic showdown at the end of the movie... seems a little smaller than you would expect after everything that’s come before it, I thought. Although, it still works pretty well and it doesn’t really detract from the movie either, I reckon. So there you go, I quite liked Ghostbusters Frozen Empire and I think its very lucky that the movie didn’t shift tonally too much from the last outing. If you liked the previous movie then you’ll probably like this one too.

Ghostbusters Afterlife

A Spengler For Detail

Ghostbusters Afterlife
USA/Canada 2021
Directed by Jason Reitman
Columbia Pictures

Warning: Sorry, this one’s going to have some
big spoilers so I can talk about certain things.

Well, colour me surprised. My relationship with the Ghostbusters franchise over the years has been fairly hit and miss and I wasn’t expecting a great deal from Ghostbusters Afterlife, truth be told. I remember, when I was a teenager I was certainly no stranger to buying music (I was always a soundtrack listener) but I remember somehow, accidentally hearing the main Ray Parker Jr song from the first movie on TV and I rushed out and bought what was for me, the first piece of music I ever paid for which had vocals on it. Yeah, I bought the 12 inch single of the main thing and played it to death on my turntable.

So then, obviously, my parents and I (they liked the song as much as I did), went to the cinema to see the movie and, yeah, we had a relatively good time with it. I’m not saying I loved it but it was entertaining enough and it had a neat song and score. Alas, at the time, the soundtrack album was just a bunch of songs with just a couple of the Elmer Bernstein cues on there but, after a couple of decades, the proper Bernstein score was released on CD.

Anyway, getting back to the legacy of the franchise... we were all hyped up to see Ghostbusters II when it came out and, if I said I thought it was a bit of a letdown, that would be an understatement. The score on the thing didn’t help either. So, yeah, despite constant rumours of a third movie, it never materialised. And then, in 2016, a new all-female reboot was released and, well, I had a problem with it. I had nothing against the fact that the Ghostbusters were all women (that rocked and, to be honest), on a technical level the film looked great and it really worked well as an overall story. However, the dialogue just wasn’t, in any shape or form, funny... and it was obviously trying to be. So that kind of took the wind out of the sails of that one for me but, because it was so well put together, I kept hoping that the studios wold bankroll a sequel and maybe do a much funnier follow up. Alas, it didn’t happen and, instead, we have a new Part 3 to the franchise, Ghostbusters Afterlife, which is a direct sequel to the first two movies but, alas, forgets the reboot totally. So, yeah, like I said... I wasn’t expecting much from this one.

So I’m really pleased to say that I absolutely loved this new, fresh take on the series. Especially since it mainly deals with a bunch of kids... which is not something I usually get hooked into. This one, though, hits all the right notes and manages to do a fair bit, even when the producers are walking a tightrope of what could be considered a very ‘bad taste’ idea... and not only getting away with it but knocking it out of the park. And by that I mean, including Egon Spengler as a major character, despite Harold Ramis, who played Spengler in the original two and who helped write them, having been dead for a few years.

So, okay, the film starts off very strongly with Egon having a big showdown with an evil force in a little town where he’s been living the life of a recluse for the last 20 or so years. It’s set at night and lit in such a way that you never see the actor’s face who is stepping in for Ramis at this point... but it’s done brilliantly. And then, after trapping and hiding the spirit that the big bad supernatural force is after, Spengler is killed.

Cut to... Spengler’s estranged daughter Callie (played brilliantly by Carrie Coon), her son Trevor (nicely played by Stranger Things alumni Finn Wolfhard) and her daughter Phoebe (played by Mckenna Grace who is, frankly, phenomenal in this and pretty much carries the whole movie on her shoulders). Phoebe is the one who has inherited her grandfather’s love and talent for science and so she becomes the Egon of this movie. The three of them have just been evicted but, on the death of Egon, they’ve inherited the dirt farm in the small town and now have to try and live there and fit in. Rounding out the cast is Logan Kim as Phoebe’s new friend Podcast, Celeste O'Connor as Trevor’s new crush Lucky and, last but by no means least, Ant-Man himself, Paul Rudd as the local summer school teacher and seismologist Mr. Grooberson.

And it’s a blast as spirits are accidentally unleashed, including a Muncher (this films comic relief ghost, similar to the Slimer in the previous movies) and a welcome return for the Marhsmallow Man, or men this time as miniature versions, like a bunch of mischievous gremlins. Everyone does good in this and it’s a blast. I think there’s possible a little less of Rudd’s character than I would have hoped for and, okay, there’s obviously going to be a point where the original Ghostbusters re-enter the narrative and, yes, it’s great seeing them... Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson are all back. As is Annie Potts playing their old secretary (no Rick Moranis, alas). I would definitely say they are somewhat underused though, coming in for a big deus ex machina moment towards the end of the movie, when everyone else has gotten in way over their heads as they take on the main villain from the original movie, Zuul. This time around it’s Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd who become her giant dog-like gatekeepers.

So, yeah, some of the acting talent is wasted a little but, all in all, it’s a good all rounder and I really had a good time with it.

But the main addition is the one you are not expecting. At some point in the narrative the audience comes to realise that the invisible ghost of Egon Spengler is helping Phoebe to put all the jigsaw pieces of the evil spirit’s dastardly plan together and get herself armed up with a working proton pack and trap etc... and I expected them to leave it there but, no, they took a bit of a risk at the end but, as it turns out, it pays off. I’m not usually a friend to the idea of CGI actors like, say, Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher turning up in Rogue One. It just doesn’t look anything like the real person to me. It always looks fake. Well, the director has gone down this route here with a CGI version of Spengler to help out our heroes in the end showdown but, here’s the thing... because it’s an aged, silent, spectral ghost version of Harold Ramis, well, it looks just great. Not only that, his inclusion in those final scenes is actually quite a moving moment... there were tears in my eyes (which is only going to get worse on subsequent watches where my eyes erupt into fountains, I’m sure) and the whole thing manages to completely step out from the whole ‘bad taste’ issue and function well as both a story beat and emotional punctuation to the move. So, yeah, I loved it.

And not only that but Rob Simonsen’s score (which is thankfully on CD and which I will be ordering in a couple of weeks) totally plunders Elmer Bernstein’s original Ghostbusters score and uses his various themes and, yeah, that really works too. And even when he’s not using Bernstein’s themes, Simonsen uses similar orchestration to kind of glue it all together and it never once feels like a tongue in cheek parody... it just feels right for the spirit of the film. So that’s great.

Which leads me onto my other slight disappointment with the movie. There starts to be a point about three quarters of the way through when you want to hear that Ray Parker Jr song either teased within the score or just out and out played as the new Ghostbusters team go on to prove that they ‘ain’t ‘fraid of no ghosts’. Alas, they do play the song but it’s kept back for the end credits of the movie... I feel they should have integrated it into the film a little better, for sure (but then again, the original didn’t do all that much with it either, if memory serves).

And that’s me almost done with Ghostbusters Afterlife. A surprisingly good sequel and an all round entertaining movie. One last thing though... there’s a nice moment when you see a familiar name in the end credits list and think... wait a minute, she never turned up in it. And then the first, mid end credits sequence plays out and, yes, she does indeed turn up in it to reprise her role (if you know the original movie, I’m guessing you know who I’m talking about here). So, yeah, stay for the mid end credits scene and, also, for the final post credits scene, which isn’t quite as successful but seems to be setting up some kind of sequel possibility in it. And there you have it. A good time was had and I’ll be showing this one to my folks now as soon as possible.

Annabelle Comes Home

Dolly Go Lightly

Annabelle Comes Home
USA 2019 Directed by Gary Dauberman
UK cinema release print

Annabelle Comes Home is the seventh of the movies set in The Conjuring universe and for the most part, these have been successful films (I’m not talking about box office here, although that’s been good for them too on most of these, is my understanding). This one is the third of what had been a series of stand alone spin offs featuring the Annabelle doll from The Conjuring but this one also has the added bonus of having opening and closing sequences featuring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprising their roles as Ed and Lorraine Warren. Lorraine Warren passed away earlier in the year and there’s a nice little ‘In Memorium’ type statement at the end of the film before the end credits roll.

In terms of the doll centred films in general, I’m going to start off by saying that this is not as bad as the first prequel, Annabelle (reviewed here) but by no means as good as the second prequel to that prequel, Anabelle Creation (reviewed here). This one, though, is set after both of those films and starts off with the Warrens bringing the doll back to their house so they can put it in a glass case and keep the evil contained. So it’s kind of set before the bits of The Conjuring where the Annabelle doll gets out near the end and this is a whole ‘adventure’ involving the doll that somehow wasn’t mentioned in those earlier movies. So wedged in between the various installments, it kinda doesn’t help that the main protagonist of this film, Lorraine Warren’s young daughter Judy, is played by somebody totally different... a young actress called Mckenna Grace. Not that she doesn’t do a great job... it’s just confusing but, with the way child actors' faces change so quickly, probably a necessity of setting this one back a bit before the events of some of the other films.

Grace is ably supported by two other teenage antagonists played by Madison Iseman and Katie Sarife as Judy’s babysitters while the Warrens are away for an evening and if you’re thinking that this movie seems overly teenage oriented for a franchise that has, with the two main movies at least, proved to be a mature, well made series of horror films... you’d be right. This is kind of a ‘Conjuring light’ movie and the plot revolves around something which we’ve seen since the opening of the very first movie in the sequence, the Warren’s ‘trophy room’. The writers have always made it clear that the things in this room should not be disturbed in any way lest the 'evil spirits' within return to their demonic ways so, of course, this is a film about what happens when one of the three protagonists goes on a rampage of curiosity within the forbidden room and lets out, not just the Annabelle doll but a load of other nasty characters too... since the Annabelle is known for being a conduit for all things demonic.

So, yeah, spooky things are afoot and it would be remiss of me not to mention that this movie does feel a lot less like an Annabelle movie and more like Nancy Drew Meets The Conjuring. However, saying that, it’s still very good at laying on the unbearable suspense and not always so obvious jump scares which, frankly, makes it a lot more scarier than some of the other movies I’ve seen at the cinema lately (cough... Midsommar... cough... In Fabric).

In fact, right from the opening ‘mini-adventure’ involving Ed and Lorraine Warren trying to drive the Annabelle doll home before she can kill them, we have the director deliberately playing with the conventions of the horror movie format by setting up not one but two view obscuring moments which he completely doesn’t use to deliver the obvious shock moments. They follow on from each other very quickly and the first of these is when Ed pops the bonnet of his car, thus obscuring what’s going on behind the windscreen from inside, where Lorraine is seated. Straight after, Lorraine opens up a large map of the area which completely blocks out our view of her side window. So, the director already knows we are expecting at least one of these two things to be hiding a jump scare and cleverly skips these... only revealing a cast of spirits from one of the views when we already know what’s happening out there.

Later on, when the film gets into full flow, the usual horror movie rules apply, where things are consistently obscured from the camera or deliberately used to foreshadow action which doesn’t actually come from the usual, on screen sources... and it’s a nice touch which shows that the film makers are at least thinking about the way an audience can second guess where the scares are coming from and, in this way at least, the film is consistent with the two main Conjuring titled movies. So yeah, one of the strong points of these films is that they respect the audience’s knowledge of the visual and audio semantics of the horror movie enough to be able to play around with things from time to time.

Another nice thing was the appearance of the brand of rag doll which was the actual Annabelle doll from the real life case make another minor cameo in this film. I think this has happened at least twice now.

Joseph Bishara’s score is, of course, another strong element of the film and it’s another case of a modern horror film giving us some effective and listenable scoring which isn’t just about extensions of the sound design. Alas, so far there’s only a stupid electronic download of the thing but if ever a CD comes out, I’ll be first in line to buy it. In fact, if a CD doesn’t come out then it will be the first movie in The Conjuring universe to not have one... so I really hope they don’t go the Marvel route with this by not releasing ‘much wanted’ CDs for some of the films.

Ultimately, as I’ve possibly oversold here earlier, the film is like a crazy fun house ride for kids in terms of the mix of teenagers with a whole load of different demonic entities after them but it does, at least, introduce us to some characters which I feel would be nicely explored in other spin offs. The spirit from the last movie in the series, The Curse Of La Llorona (which I reviewed here) makes a brief, fleeting appearance near the very start of the movie but, alas, there’s no reference to The Nun that I could easily spot. However, I think promising characters like a spooky ferryman demon, a killer bride and a big, ferocious werewolf spirit could be happily explored in future spin offs and, I suspect, be more effectively used than they were able to be in a movie which was trying to cram them all in together before we’ve already met them all properly.

At the end of the day, if you loved The Conjuring movies and the Annabelle spin offs then you should have a good time with Annabelle Comes Home. It’s not exactly intense horror but it did procure some screams from the audience I saw it with and fans of the genre in general shouldn’t have too much of a bad time with it. Not an essential watch but if you’re a fan of the cinematic incarnation of The Warrens then you should probably give this one some of your time.