Return of the Ghostbusters

2007
Directed by Hank Braxtan

The Ghostbusters are back, and they’re now in fan film form! Wait a minute…. A Ghostbusters fan film? Feature length? That’s crazy! What’s even crazier is it is a sequel! The original production was a half-hour fan film entitled Freddy Vs Ghostbusters, and that spawned this stand-alone sequel that attempts to remain true to the themes of the original Ghostbusters films while still trying to be not a carbon copy. Now, as this is a fan film, we can expect some of the acting to be a bit off. I won’t focus on wooden performances, but if someone is so bad they actually make it painful to watch their scenes I am going to point them out, because that’s what I do: be a jerk on the internet. But back off, man, I’m a scientist. Really, I am, which is great because I can use that line ironically and nonironically at the same time.

The film was produced by Braxtanfilm, a small company out of Denver. Directed by Hank Braxtan, who also co-wrote it along with star Tim Johnson. Being that they are small time, I don’t have any cool trivia to pad out part of the review with. The visual effects were done by Ryan P. Wilson and Justin Rader, who donated their services for nothing if I am correct. This helped the film save a lot of money. In fact, the film only cost around $2000 while it looks like it cost considerably more. Lots of props were donated by Ghostbusters fans, which helped make the Ghostbusters equipment look like they had actual props and not leftover toys from The Real Ghostbusters line.

I am a fan of the Ghostbusters franchise. I grew up with the films, I watched the cartoon, I drank the Hi-C, I own some Ghostbusters kids books. When the movie was released on DVD I rented it to watch the commentary, and my roommate at the time had never seen the film, so we watched it regularly. He was from China, and didn’t understand the term “ghostbuster” which wasn’t in his dictionary, but I explained what was going on and he enjoyed it.

We’ve had a fan film here before (Star Wars: Revelations) and will have some more later, but for now this Ghostbusters fan film is our focus. So whip out your Ecto Cooler, leash up your class-5 full roaming vapors, and prepare for a ride into fanfilm land with the Ghostbusters! Just remember not to cross the streams.