GHOSTS: BE AFRAID. AFTER TEASING US IN AFTERLIFE, THE PARANORMAL OGS ARE BACK, TEAMING UP WITH THE NEW BREED TO BATTLE SOME FEARSOME — AND FROSTBITTEN — UNFAMILIAR FOES IN GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE. PROTON PACKS AT THE READY…

WORDS TOM ELLEN

Still got it: OGs Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) and Peter Venkman (Bill Murray).

THROUGH A FOREST OF HANDS, MOST OF THEM CLUTCHING SMART-PHONES, YOU SUDDENLY SEE IT.

Swerving giddily in and out of traffic, the vehicle careens through a red light at the corner of West 20th Street and Fifth Avenue, then screeches out of sight. The crowd gasps in unison, and above the uproar, a child’s voice can be heard: “Daddy! I saw it!”

The “it” in question is a souped-up white Cadillac, its roof heaving with complex-looking metal gadgetry. This particular white Cadillac has not been spotted on the streets of Manhattan since the late 1980s. But there’s no mistaking it.

That’s Ecto-1.

Last June, a flurry of shakily filmed videos like the one described above were uploaded to social media, as shooting for the new Ghostbusters film, Frozen Empire, hit New York City. “We had two weeks of wild, inter-borough action,” laughs director/co-writer Gil Kenan. “It was really important to me that New York played New York in this movie. There’s nothing like seeing Ecto-1 slaloming through the high-rises, buildings reflecting off its chrome bumper. People were pointing and cheering and filming, which just added to the charm and authenticity.”

The reason public reaction was quite so hysterical was that the Ghostbusters had been away from home a long time. In the original two movies (directed by the late, great Ivan Reitman), the Big Apple is as much a character as the flight-suited heroes themselves —whether it’s a marshmallow-caked Winston Zeddemore hollering, “I love this town!” or a sentient Statue Of Liberty stomping down Broadway (“She’s tough! She’s a harbour chick!”). In 2021, though, for the canon’s long-awaited third instalment, Ghostbusters: Afterlife (lest we forget, Paul Feig’s 2016 film was a ‘reinvention’ rather than a sequel), the spectre-spattering action was relocated to rural Oklahoma, as the family of deceased ’Buster Egon Spengler (the late, equally great Harold Ramis) strapped on the proton packs themselves.

That film —produced by Reitman and directed by his son, Jason —was a hit, notching $204 million against a $75 million budget, and (for the most part) winning over old fans while creating legions of new ones. But without New York City’s steaming sidewalks and gleaming skyscrapers as a backdrop, the tone felt far removed from the hugely beloved ’80s originals. Which was absolutely the filmmakers’ intention.

“Afterlife was about taking [the franchise] out of New York to shake off the rust,” says Jason Reitman —now on co-writing duties for Frozen Empire, having handed the director’s baton to Kenan. “It was a passing-the-torch movie —it was about setting this world up again and establishing our new characters. The joy of Frozen Empire,” he adds with a grin, “is that it opens with a ghost chase. We throw you right back into Ecto-1, sliding around corners in Manhattan, chasing the biggest ghost we’ve ever seen in Ghostbusters” —that’s the fearsome Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon, as seen on the previous spread.