In 1984 everyone knew the answer to one of the world’s most burning questions, “Who you gonna call?” Twenty-five years on that question gets the same rousing response – GHOSTBUSTERS. Now the green slime is out on Blu-ray.
There is no doubt that the film is a genre classic that is, despite a few dodgy hairdos, as funny as it was when it was first made. What haven’t really stood the test of time are all the special effects. What were cutting edge a quarter of a century ago look a bit passé now, and watching them in high definition tends to show all the seams that were overlooked before. And there is also a lot of inconsistency in the quality of the image where the film grain is clearly visible on occasions.
I am still to be convinced that Blu-ray is the big jump forward that the marketing people are telling us it is. The image improvement from DVD to Blu-ray is nowhere near what it was from VHS to DVD, and it hasn’t been helped by hardware makers bringing out upscaling DVD players either, and it is older titles like this one that are encouraging me to stick with DVD for some time yet. I have to admit that I haven’t watched many new releases on Blu-ray yet. I’m talking about movies that were either shot with 4k cameras are digitised from film at 4k, with the special effects also created in HD. The other aspect that is being hyped is the way the special features can be accessed. Let’s face it, most people don’t watch the special features, which are more often than not studio marketing fluff, and having them running while you are watching the film seems like an unnecessary distraction. Some of the better indie films have good making of docs and director commentaries that are great for anyone interested in the filmmaking process, and many of these have improved over the years as the filmmakers learned to include them for the DVD release in the whole production cycle. I am guessing that they are still learning the best ways to harness the possibilities of the new platform. Old films like GHOSTBUSTERS have to either rely on contemporary 16mm docs or shoot new retrograde footage with people reminiscing, and in the case of this film that is exactly what you get – and most of it is lifted off the DVD release. The latest stuff included is featurettes on the new GHOSTBUSTERS video game, so basically adverts.
With the DVD of both films available online for under a fiver I do wonder who will want to fork out a lot more for this old film with a few new tricks. Thankfully, they haven’t done a Lucas on it, so you still get the naïve charm of the original, just in higher definition.
GHOSTBUSTERS is out now on Blu-ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and comes with a 32 page scrapbook printed on good old-fashioned paper. It is available from major retailers including Amazon
We have four copies to give away courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Click on the link below to enter the competition, which closes on 15 July 2009.