Ghostbusters: Afterlife proves that even though it's been a while since we saw the old gang, the franchise still knows how to frighten viewers.
- The mine that serves as Gozer's temple was closed and abandoned after the workers started committing suicide by jumping down the mine shaft. It later becomes apparent why this happened: the miners were under the sway of Gozer and offering themselves as human sacrifices.
- Offering themselves, or else hired from outside the cult and then pushed into the shaft by Shandor's minions once they'd outlived their immediate usefulness. Probably just before they were due to be paid, too.
- The “death pit” into which these miners and cultists presumably threw themselves: periodically, the spirits become restless and come bubbling up from the pit like a horrifying lava flow made of malevolence and grasping arms.
- The girders for the apartment building where the dimensional cross-rip happened in New York were forged out of metal taken from the mine. Not only did Shandor design and build 550 Central Park West, but the very beams that make up the structure were literally infused with paranormal energy. That's some obsessive devotion.
- The spirits in the mine being released. While it isn't as frightening as the "opening the containment unit" scene in the original movie, it still manages to be unnerving.
- Those workers who died in Shandor's mine? We get to see one of them
in the diner, in zombie form. Unlike the cab driver in the original movie, you can actually see shifting tendons and grinding bones as he turns his head.
- Those workers who died in Shandor's mine? We get to see one of them
- We finally get to see Ivo Shandor himself — in a glass coffin in Gozer's temple, looking exactly as he did in life. When Gozer awakens, Shandor slowly turns his head and opens his cloudy, undead eyes to look at Podcast. Then, he gets up, breaking out of his coffin as if he were just getting out of bed in the morning.
- As soon as Gozer is revived, the first thing it does is rip Shandor in half. That's how a Sumerian deity thanks its loyal servants — or, at least, those with the arrogance to consider themselves to be its equal.
- Gozer itself is more frightening than in its previous appearance: its body is revealed to be a transparent exoskeleton (though which we can see the swirling pink energy that makes up its core), and its eyes are pitch black.
- Possession by one of the Terrordogs is played for all the horror it's worth, especially once it happens to Callie.
- Callie looking at the childhood photos of her in the garage when she hears a loud growling noise. She turns to face it, and there's a pair of red eyes illuminating the dark before the Terrordog promptly jumps out and possesses her.
- The kids come home to find their mother sitting in an easy chair, completely motionless — not yet realizing that she's been possessed.Trevor: Mom...?Callie: (whispers) There is no Mom, only Zuul.Phoebe: Mom, are you alright?Callie: (turns to face the children, eyes glowing red, speaks up in a much deeper tone of voice) THERE IS NO MOM! ONLY ZUUL!!!!!
- The possessed Callie beginning to stroke Podcast's hair and asking him if he is the Keymaster. Phoebe and Podcast are Squicked out by this and pull him away from her.
- The second time Zuul possesses someone, it's teenager Lucky. Vinz Clortho was still possessing Grooberson.
- Grooberson's possession, while injected with some humor, is also frightening, with the gigantic hellhound chasing him out of Wal-Mart and into his car, where it sits on the hood and leers at him through the broken windshield.
- Egon's death. His body might not have been mangled by the spirit that ultimately killed him, since everyone thought he suffered a heart attack, but he died alone and friendless in the middle of nowhere. Phoebe tells Ray that Egon had died within the week, but given no one in town liked him, and avoided him and his house like the plague, it's entirely possible that she's just assuming he died recently. There's no telling how long Egon's dead body sat in that chair.
- Probably not too long. He crashed his truck in a cornfield, which was bound to be noticed. Plus, a body would likely decompose more quickly in the heat of an Oklahoma summer, so Egon was probably found quickly. The "last week" statement was probably fairly accurate. Plus, given he crashed his truck, there probably would have been an autopsy, since he was found sitting in his home after crashing his vehicle. They likely assumed he'd had an accident, an old man, limped home, and collapsed of a heart attack from the shock and stress.
- The Marshmallow Men may be this for some viewers. The cute Anthropomorphic Food gleefully destroying themselves and each other, including preparing themselves to be eaten, can be quite disturbing. They also prove to be a significant threat in the crucial final battle against Gozer when they sabotage Ecto-1's electrical systems.
- In The Stinger, Winston returns ECTO-1 to the Firehouse, now sitting abandoned and empty — except for the Containment Unit still sitting in the basement, red light flashing, indicating that it's starting to fail...
