Summary
We see Louis walking away from Tavern on the Green, now also possessed by a demon, stating that he is the Keymaster. He runs up to a horse and tells it his name is “Vinz Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer.” When the man who drives the horse-drawn carriage asks Louis if he wants a ride, Louis’s eyes light up red, which startles the driver. After whispering to the horse, “Wait for the sign, then all prisoners will be released,” Louis runs off. At Ghostbusters headquarters, a cop knocks on the door and Janine answers it. When Egon comes to the door, the cop shows him Louis and offers to hand him over to the Ghostbusters for further investigation. Holding up a device, Egon determines that there is a paranormal disturbance within Louis and brings him into the office. Inside, Egon hooks Louis up to some machines. While Louis maintains that his name is Vinz Clortho, Janine examines his identification and discovers that his real name is Louis. “What sign are you waiting for?” Egon asks Louis. Louis launches into a prophecy that Gozer will arrive soon. Janine tells Egon that she’s worried about him, when the phone rings. It’s Peter, who tells him that he has “some news from the world of Gozer,” and explains that he is at Dana’s apartment, that he gave her a bunch of Thorazine, and that she says she’s the gatekeeper. Egon informs Peter that he has the Keymaster back at the office. While Peter thinks they should reunite the Keymaster with the Gatekeeper, Egon thinks that would be very dangerous, and Peter says he will be back at the office soon. Hanging up, Egon tells Janine that they have to find Ray. Peter leaves Dana in bed in her apartment.
Ray and Winston are driving, and Winston talks about how he believes in God and loves Jesus’ style. Ray is busy looking at the blueprints for the structural ironworks in Dana’s apartment building, which he confirms are “very, very strange.” Winston asks Ray if he remembers the part of the Bible that warns that in the last days, the dead will rise from the grave. Ray can only remember a part of Revelation which goes, “And I looked as he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake. And the sun became as black as sackcloth. And the moon became as blood.” Winston continues with the passage, reciting, “And the seas boiled and the skies fell. Judgment Day.” Ray tries to shrug off the idea as pure myth, while Winston suggests that perhaps the reason the Ghostbusters have been so busy is because there is some kind of giant cosmic judgment taking place.
The scene shifts to the following day at Ghostbusters headquarters. A cop, an electrician, and Walter Peck from the EPA enter the building and walk briskly towards the back of the office. When Janine tries to stop them, Peck threatens to have her arrested, presenting her with a cease and desist writ and a search warrant. As Peck, the cop, and the electrician go downstairs, Egon tries to stop them from entering, but Peck tells him to turn off all the machines. When Egon warns him that that would be very dangerous, Peck fires back that the Ghostbusters are facing federal prosecution. Egon holds up his arms and warns Peck again: “Simply turning it off would be like dropping a bomb in the city.” Peter enters, interrupting the confrontation and insisting that if Peck turns off the machine, the Ghostbusters will not be held responsible for whatever happens. When Peck ignores this and orders the electrician to turn off the machine, even the electrician is hesitant and doesn’t want to do it. Peck and the police officer become angry and order them to shut off the machine, and the electrician does so. We see Dana breathing heavily in her bed for a moment. A red light and alarm goes off in the Ghostbusters building and a giant explosion of pink fire and smoke blows through the roof.
“This is it! This is the sign!” says Louis, looking up at the wreckage, as crowds and police cars assemble near the building. As the Ghostbusters run to plan their next move, Peck orders a group of policemen to arrest them for being in violation of the EPA and stating that “this explosion is a direct result of it.” Egon becomes incensed and begins attacking Peck as pink light and balls of fire shoot into the sky over the New York skyline. Dana stands up from her bed and looks at the pink fireballs. We see people coming out of the subway, when suddenly a number of ghosts follow them out and scare them. A man gets in a cab driven by a frightening decaying corpse that drives recklessly. The green ghost from the hotel emerges from a hot dog cart. We then see Dana walking towards her window, as flumes of pink light come flying towards her apartment building and the entire wall of her apartment collapses.
The Ghostbusters are thrown in jail. In a cell, Egon, Ray, and Peter examine the blueprints of Dana’s apartment building. Peter asks Ray to explain to him in plain terms what is so special about the building, so Ray informs him that “the whole building is a huge super-conductive antenna that was designed and built expressly for the purpose of pulling in and concentrating spiritual turbulence. Your girlfriend lives in the corner penthouse of Spook Central.” Egon continues, telling his associates that the architect of the building, Ivo Shandor, was the founder of a secret society that worshipped Gozer and deemed society “too sick to survive,” and along with his followers started conducting rituals to bring about the end of the world. Winston becomes impatient with the idea that they are going to plead before a federal judge and talk about the supernatural world, when they are interrupted by a policeman who tells them the mayor wants to meet with them.
Meanwhile, Louis goes to his apartment building looking for Dana. The wall of Dana’s apartment has completely fallen off, but she lounges in a chair where Louis finds her. “I am the Keymaster,” he says, to which she responds, “I am the Gatekeeper.” Louis walks towards her as romantic music plays. They embrace and Dana dips him in her arms, before leading him to the bedroom as thunder crashes outside. The scene shifts and we see the Ghostbusters being led to the mayor’s office. Rushing in, Martin Peck informs the mayor that the Ghostbusters are complete hacks and are causing the current problem rather than solving it; Peck alleges that the Ghostbusters are using hallucinatory gases to make people “think they’re seeing ghosts.” A fight breaks out when Peter says something offensive to Peck, but the police officers present get it under control as the local government troubleshoots about how to fix the ghost problem. Suddenly a priest enters and asks what the problem is. The priest tells him, “I think it’s a sign from God, but don’t quote me on that.”
Winston steps forward and asserts that while he has only been with the company for a few weeks, he can confirm that the ghosts are real. The Ghostbusters passionately tell the mayor that what is happening is a serious problem. Peter strikes a deal with the mayor that if they’re wrong about the ghosts they will go to jail, but if they’re right the mayor “will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters.” The mayor agrees, which appalls Peck. In the next moment, the mayor has Peck removed from his office, which delights Peter. Once Peck is out of the office, the mayor asks the Ghostbusters, “What do you need from me?” The scene abruptly shifts to the streets filling with soldiers. They have apparently called in the military for help. A squadron of police cars, including the Ghostbuster car, makes its way down the street towards Dana’s apartment building. Crowds of religious people, protestors, and fans of the Ghostbusters are gathered outside the building as the Ghostbusters pull up. Peter gets out of the car and greets the fans theatrically. The men put on their packs and prepare to enter the apartment building, when suddenly they hear a crack of thunder from above. Lightning hits the top of the building as ominous clouds gather, and all of a sudden, the ground gives way beneath them. While it seems for a moment that the Ghostbusters fell into the ground, they emerge unscathed and the crowd cheers delightedly.
Analysis
In line with its comedic leanings, the film portrays Louis’ possession in humorous ways. He stumbles around, just as nerdy and clumsy as ever, only now he calls himself the Keymaster, and speaks with a strange vocabulary of various demonic and ancient names and words. He, like Dana, has become possessed, but while hers turned her into a seductive and nymphomaniacal vixen, his has left him just as nebbishy as he was before the possession. Making his transformation all the more humorous is the fact that in New York City, a place filled with crazy ranters and ravers, he doesn’t seem that out of place. He claims to be an evil demonic entity, but this just causes people around him to shrug. The man driving the horse-drawn carriage in Central Park doesn’t take him seriously at all, and after Louis has rattled off a bunch of names of esoteric entities, simply says, “What an asshole!”
The tone might be comedic, but the stakes are pretty high. As Winston and Ray discuss in the car, the Ghostbusters are potentially dealing not only with some paranormal peculiarities, but perhaps with a giant catastrophic apocalypse of biblical proportions, a literal “Judgment Day.” Winston and Ray quote a particularly foreboding passage from the Bible, one which describes great natural catastrophes including the sea boiling and the sky falling and the end of mankind. While the film has been a comedy with a lot of humorous antics, this conversation warns of a much more dramatic and terrifying fate for the characters and the world. The Ghostbusters must step in and intervene or else the world’s fate could hang in the balance and all could perish. The high stakes add some gravity to the otherwise kooky and comic film and give the Ghostbusters a broader purpose to fighting the pests from the afterlife.
It remains rather ironic—given the debate now around climate change and global warming—that the greatest threat to the Ghostbuster’s prevention of the apocalypse is the EPA. Walter Peck returns to the Ghostbusters office and orders Egon to turn off all the machines, as the organization is in violation of environmental laws. What Walter Peck does not know is that if they turn off those machines, a slew of ghosts and other demonic presences will be unleashed on the world and they will be stronger than ever. Even though the Ghostbusters have many demonstrable successes with getting rid of ghosts and exterminating the paranormal, they still have to contend with people disbelieving that what they are doing is actually good for society. While the Ghostbusters are saving the environment and the world from a widespread incursion of ghostly destruction, this means nothing to the pragmatically minded Walter Peck, who cares more about the rules and regulations that the small business he is breaking.
As skeptical as many people—such as Walter Peck—are about the Ghostbusters, they also seem to have quite a lot of fans. Their emergence from City Hall and their meeting with the mayor is a glory-filled one. It is appropriate that they emerge from City Hall at the same time as groups of soldiers from the military assemble, because they are cheered with an enthusiasm and a joy that seems more appropriate to war veterans. Peter soaks in the admiration of their fans with the greatest delight, emerging from their car to compliment the shirts of admirers and take people’s hands in his. Peter is the politician of the group, the jokester who delights in the adoration of a crowd. The Ghostbusters may be kooks, and their work may be dubious to some clean-cut establishment types, but they have a strong and hearty fanbase of people who are grateful for their work, who believe in their expertise, and who are anxious to be saved.
The forces that the Ghostbusters greet at the apartment building are indeed extreme and terrifying. Just as they arrive, blue lightning begins to hit the top of it and dark black storm clouds collect. Not only that, but the ground beneath them starts to give way, the concrete of the street breaking off into jagged plates. The Ghostbusters get swallowed up in the destruction and sucked into the ground along with a nearby police car. These catastrophic images are, as the men predict at City Hall, biblical in scale, and call to mind the judgmental God of the Old Testament. When the Ghostbusters began their work as parapsychologists floundering their way through academia, they could never have imagined that they would one day hold the answer to saving the world on Judgment Day.
