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Post by kooshmeister on Jun 16, 2016 1:42:46 GMT
I obtained a cop of the novelization of the new Ghostbusters film.  The book begins promisingly enough. A group of people are being taken on a guided tour of the Eldridge Mansion, which their guide claims (somewhat dubiously) is the oldest existing nineteenth century house still standing in New York. We quickly learn it isn't just any old historical tour, but a somewhat gimmicky and frankly kind of tourist-trappy "haunted house" experience, complete with manufactured scares and a hoary backstory concerning the Eldridge family. Apparently, family patriarch Sir Eldridge woke up one morning to discover that his daughter Gertrude had murdered everyone else in the house overnight. Wanting to avoid a scandal that would come with a police investigation, Sir Eldridge never reported the incident to the police and locked Gertrude in the cellar, feeding his homicidal offspring through a slot in the door. After Sir Eldridge died, nobody came and fed Gertrude and she soon followed her father's example and deprived the world of her continued existence. Subsequent owners of the mansion removed her dead body from the cellar reported hearing strange noises emanating from the basement where Gertrude died, and since then, no one has dared to live in the old house, and the cellar is still kept locked. Some rather trite gag involving a "haunted" candlestick rigged to fall off of where it sits on a shelf scares the tour group, concluding the tour with the guide revealing it's all just in good fun. Everyone loves being scared, don't they? But that night, as the tour guide is closing up all by himself, he begins hearing strange noises coming from the cellar. The locked cellar door rattles, as if someone or something is attempting to unsuccessfully turn the doorknob and get out. Failing to do so, it, whatever it is, begins ramming itself furiously against the opposite side of the door, startling the tour guide, who runs for the front door. But when he grabs the knob to turn it, he discovers that it is red-hot and it painfully sears his hand. Turning to find an alternate means of escape, he finds the cellar door has very quickly (and quietly) opened while his back was turned. Beyond gapes the empty cellar where Gertrude Eldridge is supposed to have been imprisoned and died. Suddenly the tour guide gets a taste of his own medicine as the rigged candlestick flies off of the shelf at him. Terrified, he grabs a chair and tries to break a window in the dining room, only for the chair to fly back at him instead of hitting and smashing the glass. Fleeing in a blind, stupid panic, he unthinkingly runs right through the open cellar door, whereupon the rotten, termite-ridden old staircase gives way beneath his weight, dumping him down into total blackness. As he lies there stunned, he notices that a strange, slime-like substance is bleeding from the walls. Either he somehow knows it is ectoplasm or author Stacia Deutsch is just taking a weirdly omniscient narrative approach to this scene because despite being told entirely from the tour guide's P.O.V. up until now, the slime oozing from the walls is explicitly identified as ectoplasm. Suddenly, the tour guide finds himself enveloped in a blindingly bright light. He turns, looks down, and screams at the sight of something on the floor... Clearly, this is a strong beginning, even if it's basically just the opening of the original film set in a different location and with a different victim (just replace Alice the librarian with this poor tour guide). Sadly, the story just blew its wad with this effectively eerie sequence, and as far as I'm concerned, it's all downhill from here. I won't spoil anything, but, boy, oh, boy, does it ever get aggravating, and, in the end, it's a big letdown for me compared to the previous two films - at least in text form so far. I'll wait until I see the actual movie to pass my final judgment, though; after all, this isn't just a novel, it's a junior one, written by an author whose specialty is primarily children's books. What sounds stupid in text form can turn out relatively decently in motion picture form. Unfortunately, the opposite is often true, too; this effective (if derivative) opening scene may seem interesting as I read it and picture it in my mind, but it might actually turn out to suck and such hard in the final film. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jun 16, 2016 11:52:17 GMT
The dissing this film has been getting just makes me want to see it. Great to know novelisations are still out there.
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Post by kooshmeister on Jun 30, 2016 0:43:53 GMT
Apparently, Deutsch's book is just the junior novelization. I'd wondered why it was so thin. Weirdly, it isn't identified as a junior one. Anyway, the full one, by Nancy Holder, just came out:  |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jun 30, 2016 12:20:03 GMT
Saw the ad for the film on British TV the other night, Koosh. It looks dreadful. I can't wait.
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Post by kooshmeister on Jun 30, 2016 21:00:05 GMT
I don't expect it to be much good, either. But I'd like to see it, if only so I can say I saw a Ghostbusters movie in the theater. Even a crappy one.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jul 1, 2016 12:08:49 GMT
I am old enough to have seen the first film at the cinema. I don't go now though. Never seen Ghostbusters II - is it worth a watch?
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Post by mcannon on Jul 1, 2016 12:26:32 GMT
I am old enough to have seen the first film at the cinema. I don't go now though. Never seen Ghostbusters II - is it worth a watch? I'm old enough that the first time I went out with the now-Mrsmcannon was to see the first film! If only she had realised what she was letting herself in for........ It's funny - though I've seen "Ghostbusters II" a couple of times, I can't remember a single specific detail of the plot, though I recall thinking it was an okay film. I'm quite curious to see what the new version is like - it certainly seems to have enough talent for a decent film, assuming the plot and script are reasonable. Mark |
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Post by kooshmeister on Jul 1, 2016 22:58:09 GMT
Never seen Ghostbusters II - is it worth a watch? liked it. It's more or less a retread (since the Ghostbusters effectively got sued for all the damage they caused at the end of the first one and have to start over, complete with a Walter Peck-like character attempting to thwart them), but has some fun sequences, particularly the courtroom battle where they have to deal with the ghosts of executed murderers on the rampage. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Nov 30, 2016 13:18:23 GMT
Still haven't watched Ghostbusters II, but have seen Ghostbusters (2016) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Only downside for me was the intensely annoying participation of Chris Hemsworth (somewhat countered by the extraordinarily easy on the eye Kristen Wiig's infatuation with his character). Darn good fun.
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Post by Swampirella on Nov 30, 2016 16:13:59 GMT
I am old enough to have seen the first film at the cinema. I don't go now though. Never seen Ghostbusters II - is it worth a watch? In my opinion, I wouldn't bother  |
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Post by Swampirella on Nov 30, 2016 16:17:23 GMT
Still haven't watched Ghostbusters II, but have seen Ghostbusters (2016) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Only downside for me was the intensely annoying participation of Chris Hemsworth (somewhat countered by the extraordinarily easy on the eye Kristen Wiig's infatuation with his character). Darn good fun. I really enjoyed it too; Chris Hemsworth is easy on the eyes so I only found him slightly annoying  |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Nov 30, 2016 16:27:37 GMT
Well I picked up a cheapo double disc edition with the first one, so I should really sometime.
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Post by Swampirella on Nov 30, 2016 16:40:41 GMT
Well I picked up a cheapo double disc edition with the first one, so I should really sometime. Well, in that case, since you don't need to go to any trouble, you might as well watch it and tell us all what you think! |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 29, 2017 11:33:37 GMT
And four months or so later... I enjoyed Ghostbusters II! Not as good as the first, but good fun, with some really excellent set pieces, such as the opening baby-in-pram sequence, and as Koosh said, the courtroom scene is brilliant, helped immeasurably by Harris Yulin as a barking mad judge, and the welcome return of Rick Moranis as the World's Worst Lawyer - his seduction by Annie Potts (looking surprisingly boffo with a red bob) is a later highlight. Unfortunately Peter MacNicol's villain isn't up to much, but the Statue Of Liberty has a neat cameo.
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