Ghostbusters: Reinterpreting the Classic Ghost Story One Stay Puft Marshmallow Man at a Time

I have a confession to make. I only saw Ghostbusters for the first time last year. I know, shameful given its cult classic status. So needless to say, it being assigned viewing for class is ultimately helping me make up for lost time.

This semester of hauntings has been filled with malevolent ghosts, violent demons, and a couple entities that just want to show everyone how wonderful Christmas can be. All the stories have either been creepy, thought-provoking, and serious. Ghostbusters views hauntings through a different lens. While it has malevolent ghosts that torment the living, it makes them, well, fun. It takes the trope of a scary ghost story and turns it on its side.

The tone of the film is fantastic. Most ghost stories have a dark, foreboding quality. Yet even though all the ghosts in this movie are real threats—and there’s the end of the world, don’t forget that—there’s a tongue in cheek quality that carries throughout. Even during the climax of the movie when the Ghostbusters need to empty their minds so Zuul can’t create her warrior there is a comedic streak when Stantz can’t help but think of the Stay Puft marshmallow man. Just look at how fluffy he is. 

It's the characters are who maintain this light tone throughout the movie. Maybe I just haven’t found it, but every ghost hunter show I’ve ever seen features paranormal investigators who are either very serious, take themselves too seriously, or are a terrible combination of the two. None of the ghostbusters fill the role of competent, gallant hero. Their technology isn’t tested and they never have a plan. But they always manage to pull through and save the city from the terror of ghosts, and it’s their bumbling journey to the happy conclusion that’s endearing.

One of the things talked about in a genre module I took at SHU is that all genres eventually become parodies of themselves in some way or another. Ghostbusters is a perfect example of achieving this without going too far and into the realm of something silly that can be easily ignored. It takes all the elements of ghost stories and tilts them on their sides in some way or another, which is the best way to break the mold of a trope. It reinterpreted the ghost story by showing that they don’t all have to be somber and dark. Ghosts can cause trouble, even try to bring about the end of the world, but it doesn't have to be a gloomy ride to overcome them.

All in all, I wish I had seen this movie sooner, but I guess later is far better than never. Also, Bill Murray. Need I say more?

Nothing Like A Christmas Carol to Get You in the Spirit

I have fond memories of Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol. I first read it before my age broke double digits, and Disney’s The Muppet Christmas Carol is still a holiday staple in my parents’ home (and let me tell you, I’ve seen several movie adaptations of Christmas Carol, and the Muppet version sticks damned close to the book... with the exception of the puppets). It’s a story that many know well, so well that pieces of it are now ingrained in Christmas culture.

Yet despite growing up with the story through the book and the movies, never once did I stop to wonder why Scrooge was such a disagreeable character. It was just an accepted fact. He’s a miserly grouch who stomps around saying, “Humbug!” and people who hate Christmas are called Scrooges. But there’s far more to it than that.

I’ve worked in food service now for almost four years, and it didn’t take long to figure out it’s an industry that attracts memorable characters. If I’ve learned nothing else from work and from my years spent studying literature in undergrad and creative writing in grad school, it’s that there’s always a reason people (or characters) are the way they are. They don’t simply pop into existence as miserly grouches who hate Christmas.

Dickens doesn’t expect readers to simply accept that Scrooge is a terrible person just for the sake of being terrible. Through the ghosts, Dickens shows readers why Scrooge is the way he is. I found myself truly caring about Scrooge for the first time. Who knows how I’d be if my family never wanted me around, or if I had my heart broken during what’s supposed to be the happiest time of year. I also better understand why so many have a hard time during the holiday season. I’ve been fortunate to only have happiness to associate with the holidays, yet so many don’t have this same gift. But the true masters of this revelation are the ghosts.

There is only one true ghost in the typical understanding of the word: Scrooge’s seven years dead partner Marley. In the interim leading up to Marley’s haunting, Dickens does a fantastic job of given the story an eerie tone from how he uses darkness and hallucinations to distort Scrooge’s perception. I found Marley to be the most unsettling of the spirits, as he was someone Scrooge knew. Being a ghost in Dickens’ world was almost a Purgatorial sentence, wandering aimlessly for who knows how long, dragging the weight of earthly wrongs for the duration of the sentence. The image that remained most clearly in my mind was when Scrooge sees other ghosts outside his window who want to do good for the living but can’t.

While the Christmas ghosts are the ones who help Scrooge change so that he can avoid a similar fate to Marley’s, I’m not sure it’s fair to call them ghosts. Maybe I have a narrow view of the term, but ghosts are the souls of the dead who, for whatever reason, are stuck on earth. The Christmas ghosts aren’t souls, but entities unto themselves, guides rather than souls stuck between the realm of the living and the dead. Yet they work in their roles. I’m not sure how else Scrooge would have had a change of heart. He is such a shrewd, cynical character that he couldn’t have changed without supernatural intervention. Anything short he would have humbugged away.

All in all, A Christmas Carol is one of those stories that referred to so often, it’s almost necessary to know it. But if for some reason you don’t get a chance to read it (even though it’s short, I promise), watch The Muppet Christmas Carol. Seriously. It’s on Netflix.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose: Time to Suspend Your Disbelief, as Long as It's Not 3 A.M.

It’s not a secret: demons scare the hell out of me. Or, more accurately, demonic possession scares the hell out of me. Having all control of your body stolen by a sadistic, evil entity does not sound like a fun way to kill some time.

It’s also not a secret that most scary movies do nothing for me. Most of the time I laugh my way through them. Either the big baddies are unbelievable or the characters are too stupid to live. The intent behind so many horror films is to shock with sensationalism—or at least that seems to be the MO for the ones I’ve watched. The ones that actually have some impact on me are quieter, that play with the brain rather than assault the eyeballs with gore.

So, combine my fear of demonic possession with the quiet understanding that what you are about to see is based on a true story and you have the one movie that I lost sleep over: The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

I saw this movie within a year or so after it came out on DVD in 2005. I was either finishing up junior high or had just started high school—either way, I was young and impressionable and just as scared of demonic possession as I am now approximately ten years later. I knew before watching it the first time that I would be freaked out, and I was right. I pulled up every protection from demons prayer I could find and begged my mom to get me a St. Michael the Archangel medal (because the story goes he defeated Satan and all). Ten years later, I’m still terrified of 3 A.M.: the Devil’s Hour.

This time watching Emily Rose for class, I had enough distance from the story to view it more critically. For years I’ve had people give me skeptical looks when I tell them this is the only movie that truly scared me. “I thought it sucked,” is usually the explanation they give. But I never understood why they would think that until now.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think Emily Rose is terrifying in its quiet way, but that quiet way is what I think turns people off. This is not an in your face movie. There’s no gore. There’s no gruesome monster. There’s no psycho killer. Most of the movie takes place in a courtroom as Emily’s story is told through the trial. The biggest scare factor is the possession, and if you don’t believe in demons, then you won’t find this movie scary in any way.

This story appeals to keeping an open mind, which is the crux of the defense’s argument in the trial. The viewers who believe in demons will have a much easier time of being scared than those who don’t—the belief has already been suspended, whether by religion or something else. I’m not sure there was a way for the movie to dispel all doubt surrounding possession, but it knows it can’t and acknowledges the skepticism that will naturally surround the claim of “based on a true story.” It reminds me of Mercado’s disclaimer in Grave’s End saying she doesn’t expect people to believe her story, but it’s her story nonetheless.

If this had been a purely fictional account regardless of whether it was in movie or book form, I would view the acknowledgement of skepticism as a cop out. The storyteller didn’t do their job in creating a world or a situation that was so real, there wouldn’t be room unsuspended disbelief. But since Emily Rose’s story has roots in fact, and there are times when fact is stranger than fiction, I can more easily accept the disclaimer. I am more apt to believe a person’s conviction that something happened to them even if I don’t necessarily believe what they’re claiming actually happened.

My favorite quote from the movie is, “Demons exist whether you believe in them or not.” Well, I still do, and I’m still scared of 3 A.M.