MOVIE COMPANY: Columbia Pictures
DVD reviewed by Dennis A. Amith
CAST: Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Harold Ramis, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, Ernie Hudson and more.
DIRECTED BY:Â Ivan Reitman
WRITTEN BY:Â Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis
INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE URL: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0087332
TYPE OF MOVIE: Comedy
Bill murray, Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis star in this supernatural comedy classic that will have you howling! When the University downsizes the para-psychology department, Doctors Venkman (Murray), Stantz (Akroyd) and Spengler (Ramis) make the leap from scientists to Ghostbusters, investigators and exterminators of paranormal pests! The bewitching Dana Barett (Sigourney Weaver) discovers her refrigerator has become a portal into the spiritual dimension, our heroes then come face to face with an ancient evil force with plans to raise hell in Manhattan!
DVD EXTRAS:
• Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
• Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen, Dolby
• Commentary by Live video commentary by Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis (using the multi-angle function)
• Production notes
• Theatrical trailer(s)
• Soundtrack remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1
• Storyboards with split-screen compare
• Production photographs
• Deleted scenes
• 1999 star featurette
• Widescreen anamorphic format
KNOWN DVD SECRET(S): None at this time
DVD REVIEW:
QUICK NOTE: If you want to buy the Ghostbusters movies, I highly recommending buying the Ghostbusters box set (includes both movies) because it’s cheaper than buying them separately.
I remember when I first watched this movie, I loved it and in fact, I actually built a Ghostbusters contraption backpack using a vacuum cleaner, a match and a can of Lysol. I don’t recommend children doing this but what I’m getting at is that this movie was magical and everyone loved it.
I can’t believe how old this movie is…makes me feel old but here I am with the DVD’s and I wondered how it would look on DVD and how would they treat it.
Good news DVD fans, Columbia Pictures did a great job in delivering this movie on DVD and jam packed it with a whole lot of extras.
The movie is digitally remastered and watching it doesn’t make you feel you are watching a movie over 15 years old. The audio is good but I can’t put into words of how happy I am with this DVD because it’s packed with so much that it will take me a long time to go through all of it. You get the video commentary of Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis which is awesome. Storyboards, split-screen compare (which is very cool!), production notes, conceptual drawings, deleted scenes, featurettes from 1999 and from 1984, another documentary by the SFX team, before and after multi-angle (which is very cool), trailers of not just this movie but other Murray and Ramis films, subtitled production notes, I can go on and on….this DVD is awesome!
The movie was definitely a good SFX movie during it’s time and I remember being amazed as a kid on how they made this movie then. It was eye-candy but also with a cool storyline.
Also, an interesting part of the film is the “Mystery Science 3000” shadows during the commentary. Pretty cool!
What you have here is one of the best made DVD’s available at this time. Columbia/Tristar did a wonderful job and everyone involved with the Ghostbuster project should be commended. They talk about how to make DVD’s more purchasable than just for rent, if Columbia continues with making DVD’s like these, I’m buying all of them because this is purely one of the best, complete package DVD’s out there.
Also, the box set which includes both movies is priced very well and I highly recommend buying the box set.
THE MOVIE:Â A
THE DVD EXTRAS:Â A+
THE DVD OVERALL:Â A