Yesterday my girlfriend and I watched Ghostbusters (1984) for the first time in a long time. I grew up with that movie. It came out when I was five years old. Through I don’t remember seeing it until at least a few years later, not long before the second one came out in 1989. But my friends and I were hooked back then. At some point in the late 1990s I bought the DVD set of both movies. My son even got hooked on them when he was 3-4 years old. Mostly watching them with his grandma. I don’t think I’ve seen them in at least a decade if not twelve to fifteen years.
Last Christmas I was given both movies on blu-ray steelbook and we just got around to opening them and watching them yesterday, eleven months later. lol

There were a few things that struck me about the first movie, having not seen it in so long.

1. Peter is kind of a creep. The way he acts with Dana (his new client). The way he’s coming on to her while on the job at her apartment for the first time. Well that was cringy at best and creepy overall. But she handled it like a champ.
I know he was trying to be silly, and who better than Bill Murray to be able to pull that off? Yet from my perspective today as an adult, after thirty years of feminist social programming since the first time I saw the movie, I see it from a different perspective. I can’t help it. I sympathize more with her than him in that scene.

2. I’m shocked to learn that Bill Murray was thirty three years old when making that movie. Right now I’m thirty-eight, a couple months from thirty-nine and I’m sorry but he looks older in that movie than I do now. Older than most people in my age bracket right now. I feel bad saying this because I love Bill Murray, but he looks like he was born forty-five years old and stayed looking that way most of his life until he turned sixty or so.

3. “I want you inside me” says Dana while possessed on the bed. My girlfriend and I both looked at each other. Somehow we had both missed this line previously when we were kids or later when watching as young adults. Neither one of us are sure how we missed it, but we did. Sure that movie isn’t completely kiddish. There are plenty of adult things said like Peter’s “Yes it’s true, this man has no dick.”  But for whatever reason, Dana’s line caught us off guard. Not that it’s bad, just unexpected and surprised us that we never caught it before.

4. Rick Moranis carries more of that movie than I remember as a kid. I thought his character was funny back then, I just didn’t realized how much he adds to that movie. He’s like the great seasoning on top of an already good steak that brings it over the top.

5. The movie is grainier than I remember. But of course it is. I only ever saw it on VHS or DVD before this blu-ray. But compared to its sequel or other films of its era, there is definitely a lot of film grain. That’s not a bad thing, just an observation as a film geek.

6. The comedy stills holds up. Overall it’s still a movie that makes my girlfriend and I laugh out loud. So many of the older movies from my childhood are better remembered than experienced again, but not this film. It’s still a solid good time that will make me laugh. I’m really happy that’s the case.