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YMMV: Ghostbusters
  • Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The dream sequence in the first film, remnant of a cut scene that appears in its entirety in the novelization.
  • Complete Monster: Ivo Shandor and Vigo the Carpathian were both sickeningly immoral and evil men in life: Shandor "performed a lot of unnecessary surgery", plotted The End of the World as We Know It,attempted to sacrifice his granddaughter to himself so he could become a god, and kidnapped and tortured a juvenile sloar. Vigo was a tyrant with a fondness for torture and genocide. In the afterlife, of course, they haven't got much better.
    • Gozer himself is not much better. His only hobby is visiting new worlds and then destroying all on his path, even its summoners for no obvious reasons, but perhaps because he's a grand high Omnicidal Maniac or he probably just like doing it.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny: Has its own page.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The theme song is nearly as beloved as the franchise that spawned it.
    • The aforementioned "Higher and Higher". A literal example as it actually electrocutes the Statue of Liberty's crown.
    • The Elmer Bernstein score. Dana's theme is especially powerful besides the Lincoln Center theme(which sounds like a waltz).
  • Cult Classic: The first film anyway.
  • Demonic Spiders: In the 2009 game, those cherubs. THE CHERUBS!
    • The black slime golems are worthy runners-up, considering you fight two of them in cramped locales while being blasted by venom crawlers.
    • Toss all possessor ghosts into the pile: not only do you have to remove them from their human hosts before actually busting them, but they can also turn the other Ghostbusters against you as easily as they do any other human. Expect a lot of running and sliming to keep yourself alive.
    • There's the Grave Golems that make the Black Slime Golems look like patsies.
  • Ear Worm: If there's some damn song / runnin' through your head / who ya gonna call?
  • Evil Is Sexy The Spider Witch. You wouldn't have guessed from her slashed mouth with fangs,unless you're into that, but in life she was a bizarre yet attractive woman. This was her main way of attracting her victims.
  • Fetish Fuel: For nerds, Fiery Red Head secretaries, possession, and lots and lots of slime. Invoked in the movies when Ray, during a ghostbusting montage, has a dream about a sexy ghost (which actually happened in the original script and the novelization).
  • "Funny Aneurysm" Moment: The paranoid environmentalist who shuts down containment in the first film; creating a problem that unregulated industry has to solve. While the EPA and its fellow protection agencies may have helped create certain problems, it's usually because they didn't go far enough.
  • Goddamned Bats: In the Library level of the game, you constantly get attacked by bats, but not just any bats, book bats. The presence and, in later levels, commonness of "little destroyable ghosts" is a commonly-stated strike against the game.
  • Harmless Villain: Vigo becomes this in the Ghostbusters videogame. The best he can do is insult you and try and make you feel uncomfortable.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Peter Mac Nicol (Janosz Poha) would later play an art curator who was forced to host {{Mr. Bean}}. Harris Yulin (the judge from the second film) was the owner of the museum!
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks: One of the key points of criticism about the second movie is that it's in many ways a repeat of the first.
  • Memetic Mutation: Any reference to "crossing the streams", "Who You Gonna Call??", "This man has no dick", and many, many more. Notably, before the first film came out, "slime" had no verb form.
  • Memetic Outfit: The Ghostbusters uniform is still a standard of fancy-dress parties over twenty years later.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: The proton pack startup sound. You know the one; the one you just heard in your mind upon reading that.
    • Also, the distinctive siren of Ecto-1.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Despite being a comedy at its heart, there are still plenty of genuinely scary moments in the movies. The new game has its moments as well.
    • In the movies, bonus points go to the phantom librarian, the zombie cabdriver, the two electric-chair victims, the heads on spikes in the Sinister Subway, the museum boss dressed as a phantom nanny who spirits Oscar away, Vigo's eyes shifting at the beginning of No. 2...
  • Sequelitis: The second movie is generally considered much weaker than the first, and something of a pale imitation at that.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The "monster movie"-style music that plays during Stay Puft Marshmallow Man's entrance is (intentionally?) Played for Laughs when juxtaposed with Mr. Stay Puft's smiling face. However, he does turn to face the Ghostbusters a few minutes later...
  • Special Effects Failure: In Ghostbusters II, the mechanism that makes the toaster dance is clearly visible.
    • Towards the end of the first movie, a rather large rock harmlessly bounces off of a police barricade instead of crushing it.
  • Strawman Has a Point: Walter Peck's initial plea to see the containment grid was reasonable. It is his job to make sure people like the Ghostbusters are operating with safe equipment, and in fact the Ghostbusters' containment grid could cause a massive explosion in a densely-populated area. After getting crudely brushed off by Venkman, however, he overreacts and orders the grid's immediate deactivation. If Venkman had cooperated, instead of treating Peck and the EPA as an enemy from the start, they could have avoided the ensuing meltdown. That said, Peck was warned by an third party (the electrician working under him) that there could be negative effects from shutting off the grid, but just told him to shut up. He also wasn't helped by his own initial approach, which could have been a lot more diplomatic and a lot less evasive, interrogatory, condescending and quick-to-get-hostile.
    • Inversely, when Peck arrived the first time and requested to see the containment grid, he balked at the idea that he needed a warrant in order to do so. Given that Peck also showed no identification to prove that he was with the EPA, and given the unique nature of the work that the Ghostbusters do, it is possible that Venkman wrote him off as a nut trying to 'see the ghosts' and ordered him off the premises. Either way, the problems later in the movie could have been avoided by level heads on both sides.
      • The problem is actually inherent to the EPA itself; Obstructive Bureaucrats with authority over technologies and resources they are unable or unwilling to keep up to date on. One case that crosses my mind is where the EPA demanded a landfill be capped and sealed, but also demanded that that same landfill be preserved as wetlands because water, grass and animals had occupied it... but it's still a landfill and required an approved capping plan. Another good one involved a series of docks that were silting up, yet the EPA would not approve for dredging - the company took its samples and completed assessment within a month, but the EPA dragged their feet for three years, let the permits expire, then demanded another set of samples. When the docks shut down, they sued the company for a chemical spill that occurred because they had to ferry goods from the ships to shore with smaller boats. Peck having authority over a state-of-the-art technology the Ghostbusters are still working out the physics of was the problem. The EPA is full of idiots who William Atherton played too well to be believed real. Really no different than a hick cop who goes around kicking in taillights. When you can shut down a multimillion-dollar factory on a whim, you make friends fast. Venkman decided not to bite, so Peck nearly caused an apocalypse. I wish something like that would happen IRL.
  • That One Achievement: "Nice Shootin’, Tex!" Complete the game with less than $100,000 in property damage. How hard could that be? For reference, it's possible to rack up that much on some individual levels.
  • That One Boss: Most people tend to agree that Azetlor at the end of the Public Library in the XBOX 360 version of the game is ridiculously tough to beat, especially on Professional difficulty. He can move fast, has attacks that can drop you, Egon, and Ray in several hits, has some of the highest health in the game, and can summon Book Bats to help him. You need to move fast and continue reviving your teammates if you intend to survive The Collector.
    • Azetlor also qualifies for the 'Dick-of-the-Century' award: he won't attack you until you've gotten back on your feet and are ready to fight or flee.
  • Uncanny Valley: The realistic version of the game renders most of the characters fairly close to the way the actors looked in the movies. While it is still somewhat stylized, there are more than a few moments that look almost life-like.
    • In the PS3/360 version, at least. In the Wii S 2 version, the graphics are more stylized and cartoony.
  • Villain Decay: Vigo the Carpathian, the Big Bad of Ghostbusters II, is reduced to nothing more than his painting in the game, unable to do much of anything except talk. To add insult to injury, the painting is owned by the guys who beat him—the Ghostbusters.
    • The game also made Stay Puft much weaker than before, to the point the player character can take him on.
      • Well, the proton-packs were more powerful and the team, having faced him before, were better prepared.
      • It's actually stated in the game that Gozer's second manifestation as Stay Puft was much weaker than the first.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The films have aged very gracefully over the years. The proton pack streams in particular look about as good now as they would with modern CGI effects. And not to forget Stay Puft. The only thing that has dated somewhat is the stop-motion of the terror dogs, but they are still scary.

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