Summary
Inside the apartment building, the Ghostbusters climb a seemingly-endless number of stairs to get to Dana’s apartment. We see Dana sitting on a bench next to Louis on her roof. As a crack of lightning hits the roof, scary music plays. Finally, the Ghostbusters arrive on Dana’s floor, and walk down the hall to her apartment. They knock down her door, but she is nowhere to be found. Suddenly Ray sees some stairs in a corner of the apartment, and the men venture upstairs hesitantly. Purple rays of lightning encircle the apartment building as the Ghostbusters emerge on the roof where Louis and Dana are conjuring the wrath of Zuul. Both Dana and Louis are reaching up towards the turret of the apartment building while getting shot with purple lightning. Suddenly Dana and Louis turn into the evil four-legged creatures from earlier, the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper. The dog-like creatures look at the Ghostbusters, their eyes flashing red, then gallop up a large staircase towards a pyramid, the same one that Dana saw in her refrigerator at the beginning.
The Ghostbusters run after it, looking up at the pyramid. Suddenly, the doors open slowly to reveal a bright light, and a woman in a skin-tight suit descends the staircase, petting the two creatures. “It’s Gozer,” says Egon, and when Winston says that he thought Gozer was a man, Egon informs him that Gozer can take any form it wants. Ray leads the way up the stairs towards Gozer, insisting that Gozer leave New York and go to a parallel dimension. A horrifying voice emerges from the body of Gozer as she says, “Are you a god?” Ray tells her no and Gozer shoots purple lightning out of her hands at the Ghostbusters, saying, “then…die!” They fall backwards towards the edge of the building, nearly falling to their deaths, but they manage to crawl back up. Winston scolds Ray: “When someone asks if you’re a god, you say yes!” The Ghostbusters assemble again, pulling out their guns and walking towards Gozer. “Let’s show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown,” says Peter. As they fire their own lightning at Gozer, she jumps high into the air, flipping and landing on the other side of them. Egon orders them to “go full stream” and they fire at Gozer again. This time when they shoot, she disappears completely, leaving no trace.
At first, the men think that they have gotten rid of Gozer, that that was all it took, but Egon speaks up to inform them that something bad has happened. The men look up at the tower of the apartment building, which seems to be breaking apart. As chunks of the building begin to fall off, the crowds below run away. The Ghostbusters can hear a voice which says, “Subcreatures, Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Volga's Zildrohar, the Traveler has come. Choose and perish.” When Ray asks Gozer what it means, Gozer replies that they are meant to choose the form of the destructor. Peter urges the other Ghostbusters to empty their heads and not think of anything so that the destructor doesn’t come, but it is too late, and Gozer announces that the form it will take has been chosen. Peter is livid, insisting that nobody chose a form for the destroyer, when it suddenly becomes clear that Ray did make a choice. “I couldn’t help it. It just popped in there,” he says.
The men run to see what form it took, and they see a giant version of the “Stay Puft Marshmallow Man” walking down the streets of New York. Crowds of New Yorkers run in fear as the Marshmallow Man stomps down the street, and we hear sirens blaring. Ray explains, “I tried to think of the most harmless thing, something I loved from my childhood. Something that could never, ever possibly destroy us.” Peter asks Egon if he has any ideas, but Egon informs him that he is terrified and we see New Yorkers run screaming from the angry Marshmallow Man. The Ghostbusters fire their ray guns at the giant monster, which sets it on fire. The flaming Marshmallow man grabs onto the apartment building and begins to climb the apartment building as the Ghostbusters desperately try to problem-solve. Egon gets a sudden flash of inspiration, suggesting they “reverse the particle flow through the gate.” When Peter asks him how they will do that, Egon tells him that they will “cross the streams,” which worries Peter and the others. “There’s definitely a very slim chance we’ll survive,” says Egon. The men decide to set about crossing the stream.
The men fire up their guns and blast the entrance to the pyramid, just as the Marshmallow Man pops his head up over the edge of the roof. They cross the lightning coming out of their guns with one another—a send up of "crossing streams" while urinating—and the portal explodes. As they run for cover, the entire roof of the apartment building goes up in flames, including the Marshmallow Man. The ominous clouds that have gathered above the apartment building disappear as people below run from the falling debris, which includes huge piles of marshmallow. Covered in marshmallow, Ray and Winston wake up in the midst of the debris and call for Egon and Peter, who are nearby. Everyone is okay. They walk over to the scorched bodies of the two dog-like creatures—Dana and Louis—and Ray apologizes for not thinking of a way to save Dana. Suddenly, a hand reaches through the crusty scorches dog. The men help break apart the statue-like substance, and inside they find Dana, still alive. Nearby Louis calls for them, and the men help him out. Peter hold Dana as she comes back to consciousness.
Louis asks the men who they are and they tell him they’re the Ghostbusters. The group goes downstairs, as Winston yells “I love this town.” Back on the ground level, a crowd cheers for the Ghostbusters, and Peter kisses Dana as the theme song of the film plays.
Analysis
Yet again, the clumsy and uncoordinated Ghostbusters find themselves a little out of their element. When they climb to the top of the apartment building to find Dana and Louis, they stumble upon a primordial and terrifying scene. They watch as Dana and Louis turn into strange four-legged creatures and walk towards a brightly-lit pyramid at the top of some stairs. Gozer emerges, looking like a sexy 1980s female pop star in a skin-tight suit. When the men look closer, however, her eyes burn red and her speaking voice is the raspy and terrifying, the voice of a monster. None of the men possess the naturally heroic spirit of a ghost hunter—they are scientists after all—but Ray takes the fall and approaches Gozer, who shoots them all with lightning upon hearing that they are not gods.
Next they try violence, shooting Gozer, but this only angers the entity more. The energy of Gozer compounds and it threatens to take a new form, this time as anything that the Ghostbusters imagine it to be. Peter believes that if they don’t imagine anything at all, Gozer will go away. Unfortunately, Ray thinks of the Marshmallow Man. Yet again, the absurdity and nerdiness of the Ghostbusters gets in their way. Suddenly a giant, angry, demonic Marshmallow Man starts stomping down the street, like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon that’s become possessed by the devil. The Ghostbusters are yet again in over their head, and they have only endangered the city more. Their bumbling incompetence only adds to the suspense of the film.
When they band together and choose to fight evil as a unified front, the Ghostbusters are more effective. Their comical pluck and nerdy conviction make them good Ghostbusters after all, and even after a few stumbling blocks they know how to combat the giant cosmic forces around them. Like true heroes, they are willing to risk everything and try and beat the odds if it means it will save a large group of people. With no other options, the Ghostbusters decide to “cross the streams.” While Peter worries that crossing the stream will be very dangerous and Egon chimes in that they are likely to perish, they all decide to do it. The process of “crossing the stream” involves combining the forces of all of their guns to shoot the portal through which Gozer came. This image is at once comic, like a bunch of adolescent boys urinating—“crossing streams” as its were—and heroic, as it shows them combining forces to stop evil. The Ghostbusters are stronger as a group.
This final section of the film is the most suspenseful and adventure-packed. The Ghostbusters must be resourceful in order to save the city, and there are many stumbling blocks in their way. The forces of evil are unseeable, unknowable, and very large. The onslaught of ghostly happenings in the city seems very similar to a citywide state of emergency, like a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. Innocent New Yorkers run down the street, fleeing for their lives, screaming as unseen horrors pop up everywhere. Comedic and horrific at the same time, the Marshmallow Man is a childhood advertising mascot re-appropriated as an easily angered and vengeful demon. As it climbs the side of an apartment near Central Park West, New Yorkers scream in terror and cheer on the Ghostbusters to help them. When the government, the EPA, and the cops cannot save them, the Ghostbusters certainly can.
The film was notable at the time of its release for its impressive visual effects, its blending of the comedy and horror genres, and its affectionate portrayal of New York. The images of a giant demonic Marshmallow Man climbing the side of an apartment high rise and of a nerdy accountant being chased through Central Park to Tavern on the Green by a demonic dog are not only funny because they are absurd, but because they send up New York City, in which outlandish things happen everyday. When Louis runs out of the apartment building pursued by the demon dog, the doorman of the building seems nonplussed, rolling his eyes at the fact that someone brought a “cougar to a party.” No one will believe anyone else about the ghostly events taking place because to the New Yorkers of the film, anything can happen in New York. This creates a particularly funny and ridiculous setting for the outrageous science fiction with which the Ghostbusters are contending. At the end, after the Ghostbusters have defeated the demons, Winston yells from the roof, “I love this town!” solidifying the film as a love letter to New York City, as much as a ghost story buddy film.
