Summary
Uncanny, futuristic music plays, as we see the New York Public Library in the middle of the day. A librarian inside wanders through the library pushing a cart of books that need to be shelved and collecting more from the desks she passes. The ominous music continues as she descends the stairs into the basement stacks. As she shelves a few books, we see some books fly off the shelves behind her and land on the opposite shelves, out of her view. As she makes a note in her ledger and walks past a card catalogue, the drawers of the catalogue burst open and cards begin streaming out, which scares her. She screams and runs into the stacks, disturbed by the paranormal activity around her. As she rounds a corner, the stacks are flooded with a white light, and the theme song of the movie plays over the opening credits. The scene shifts and we see the college green of Columbia University, and the building that houses the psychology department. On the door of the Paranormal Studies Laboratory, someone has written with red paint “Venkman Burn in Hell.” The laboratory belongs to Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Peter Venkman.
Inside, one of the professors plays a guessing game with another man to see if he has paranormal powers. After the man guesses wrong, the professor shocks him. The professor then turns to a beautiful woman sitting next to the man and asks her to guess the shape drawn on the card he is holding up away from her. She guesses star, which the professor says is correct, but we the audience can see that it is in fact a circle. He goes back and forth between the man and the woman, always saying that the woman is correct even when she isn’t, and always saying that the man is incorrect even when he isn’t. When the man confronts him about what he’s studying, the professor tells him that he’s studying the effect of negative reinforcement on ESP ability. The man becomes enraged and storms out of the laboratory. As the professor, Dr. Peter Venkman, begins to warn the woman that this is the kind of response that people will likely have to her abilities, another professor comes in briskly to excitedly prepare for some kind operation the professors have been planning. “I’m in the middle of something, Ray!” yells Peter, referring to his attempted seduction of the woman in the lab.
Ray ignores this and tells Peter that there’s been an instance of paranormal activity at the Public Library: “10 people witnessed a free-floating, full-torso, vaporous apparition.” Peter wants to stay, but Ray insists that he come to the library, as their associate Egon Spengler is already there. Peter excuses himself to the young woman, and tells her to come back later that evening. At the library, Peter expresses skepticism about the paranormal activity at the library, arguing that they have chased down a lot of red herrings recently. They approach Egon, who is holding up a stethoscope to a desk at the library to see if he can hear the ghosts. A librarian named Roger Delacorte introduces himself and tells him they’d like to get the situation cleared up as soon as possible. The older librarian is lying down on one of the desks and she tells the scientists that she knows that the ghost she saw had arms because it reached out at her. Peter asks the woman, whose name is Alice, if she has any insanity in her family, if she uses drugs, and if she is menstruating at the moment. Egon runs into the room to tell his associates that the signal is moving, and they run to the basement stacks.
Downstairs, they find an inordinately tall stack of books in the middle of an aisle. As Ray notes, “Symmetrical book stacking, just like the Philadelphia Mass Turbulence of 1947.” Peter remains skeptical, when Ray suddenly smells something suspicious. They go to the card catalogue, where many of the drawers are open and filled with a suspicious looking goop. Ray identifies the goop as “ectoplasmic residue,” and Egon collects some of it to analyze. Peter is exceedingly grossed out by the residue as Egon leads them into one of the aisles. Suddenly a large shelf of books falls right where Pete was just standing. The men continue their search for more evidence, and as they turn a corner, they spot a full-on apparition, the ghostly figure of a woman reading a book. As the men struggle to make a move, Peter pulls them back into the stacks to decide what they should do. They enlist Peter to speak to the ghost, and he approaches it slowly, making smalltalk. The ghost shushes him and Peter is discouraged, telling the others, “The usual stuff isn’t working.” Ray has another idea, and approaches the ghost slowly, advising the men to stay close, before ordering them to attack the ghost together suddenly. When they run towards her, she becomes aggressive and monstrous, scaring them away. They run out of the library, fully spooked as Roger Delacorte asks whether they saw it. “We’ll get back to you!” Peter tells him as the trio runs away from the library.
On the Columbia campus, Peter makes fun of Ray for his botched plan, while Ray expresses excitement for having come in contact with a real ghost and touching the “etheric plane.” Egon thinks they have a good chance of catching the ghost, which delights Peter, who never thought this day would actually come. He compliments Egon’s skills and hands him a candy bar. The scene shifts to the laboratory, where Egon, Peter, and Ray find men packing up their instruments and belongings. A man who works for the university informs them that they have been fired, and that their grant has been terminated. Continuing, the man tells him, “We believe that the purpose of science is to serve mankind. You, however, seem to regard science as some kind of dodge or hustle. Your theories are the worst kind of popular tripe, your methods are sloppy, and your conclusions are highly questionable.”
Outside, Ray laments that good universities won’t be interested in them anymore now that their grant has been terminated, but Peter reminds him that “Einstein did his best stuff when he was working as a patent clerk.” Ray isn’t convinced, however, insisting that university jobs are preferable because no one expects results. Peter climbs down from where he is sitting with a liquor bottle and gives Ray a pep talk, assuring him that “everything happens for a reason,” and that they should start their own business. Ray takes a swig from the bottle, worrying that they have no place to get the money for the capture of the ghost at the library. The scene abruptly shifts to the men exiting a bank; Ray has just taken out another mortgage on his parents’ house that they left him, and he frets about losing it, but Peter assures him it will be fine. Peter then outlines their new business; they will become “professional paranormal investigators and eliminators.”
We see the men looking at a dilapidated old building with a real estate agent to turn into the headquarters for their new business. Peter worries that it’s too expensive for the quality, while Egon says it should be condemned and is completely unsuitable. Meanwhile, Ray slides down a fireman’s pole in the room, raving about the space and asking the real estate agent, “When can we move in?” He then suggests that they sleep there that night and runs to get his things. Peter looks to the real estate agent and says, “I guess we’ll take it.” We suddenly see a large fancy apartment building near Central Park. A woman with groceries, carrying a cello, climbs out of a taxi cab and goes into the building. As she walks down the hall to her apartment, the woman, whose name is Dana, runs into a neighbor named Louis, who tells her that he just ordered some vitamins and has been working out in his apartment. When he invites her in for a “mineral water,” she tells him she can’t because she has a rehearsal. Louis follows her to her apartment door and invites her to a party that he’s throwing for his clients—he’s an accountant. When Louis tells Dana that she ought not to leave her television on so loud while she’s out, she is confused, because she didn’t realize she had left it on. As Louis goes into a long story about how he tried to turn off her television, Dana slams the door in his face and goes into her apartment.
Inside Dana’s apartment, the television is on and a commercial for Peter, Ray, and Egon’s ghostbusting business is on. Dana smirks at the commercial before turning off the television and unpacking her groceries on the counter. When she goes to put away some of the groceries, the carton of eggs on the counter begins to shake and opens on it own. The eggs begin to wiggle and burst seemingly out of nowhere, then cook themselves on the counter. Dana hears a growling sound from the refrigerator and goes to open it, where she sees a strange cloud-filled setting and a horned monster who utters the word “Zuul.” Screaming, she closes the refrigerator.
Analysis
The tone of the film is established right from the start: lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek, but all shown through the genre of genuine science fiction and horror. While the zither music that begins the film has a certain jokey feel, a playful nod to alien films of yore, the scene in which the older librarian descends into the dark basement stacks is creepy and unsettling. The viewer is meant to be simultaneously amused and creeped out, meant to suspend their disbelief and open themselves to the possibility of paranormal activity, but also be able to laugh at the absurdity of the tone. The film is a blend of horror and comedy, and the tone of the film carefully toes this line. The viewer is meant to be spooked, but not so much so that they cannot laugh at the humorous course of events of the narrative.
Very little exposition is given before we are thrust into the action. We know that we are in New York, that there is a strange and unsettling infestation of ghosts, and that three men who are employed at the psychology department at Columbia are the city’s experts on paranormal activity. Within the first five minutes, we have already seen a ghost and a haunting, and the conflict of the story—getting rid of those ghosts—comes into focus. As Peter, Ray, and Egon set to work disbanding this infestation, we begin to learn more about the characters, but in Ghostbusters, the plot comes first. Setting the events of the film into motion almost immediately sets a brisk pace for the movie. The viewer hardly has time to get acclimated to the setting and context before the scientists are on the ghost trail.
Within the group of “ghostbusters,” the men have different strengths and attributes. Egon is a consummate hunter, willing to surveil any area in order to find evidence of paranormal activity. Ray is a devoted scientist, nerd-ing out about their discoveries and connecting the technical dots between the evidence and the apparitions. Peter acts as a kind of comic relief, a skeptic who never believes it until he sees it. While his suspicions often cramp the group’s style, he possesses a kind of reality-grounded pragmatism that serves their ventures. While Egon and Ray’s heads are in the clouds (how could a paranormal investigator's head not be?) Peter is there to remind them to focus on what they can actually get done. The dynamic between the men in the trio serves their work as ghost investigators, as well as heightening the comic dimension of their relationships. While Egon is detail-oriented and nerdy, Ray is bushy-tailed and earnest, and Peter contributes sarcastic one-liners.
Not only is there dramatic tension between the world of the living and the paranormal purview of the ghostly world, but also between popular academic institutional respectability and the trio of scientists’ more dubious and less-than-mainstream undertakings. When they return to their laboratory from the library, the men are greeted by a clean-cut, respectable-looking, but hostile administrator, who denigrates their area of study, calling it “questionable,” “sloppy,” and “the worst kind of popular tripe.” The occult domain in which the professors are invested is not of clear value to society, as it does not adhere to the mainstream and socially-appropriate areas of science. Thus, Peter, Ray, and Egon must contend not only with the ghosts that are taking over the city, but also an academic majority that looks down on their field of expertise.
In this first section of the film, we also learn that the presence of ghostly apparitions and strange paranormal activity is not limited to the public library. Dana, a young woman who lives in a nice apartment near Central Park, returns home to find some strange activity before opening the refrigerator and seeing a horrific horned monster. When Dana first arrives home, the television is mysteriously on, and the commercial that happens to be playing is for the services of the Ghostbusters: Peter, Ray, and Egon’s new company. She smirks at the corny ad, but it foreshadows the fact that her own apartment is in dire need of extermination. The Ghostbusters may be laughable in the context of mainstream society, but they are soon to be in high demand.
