Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #12 - Ghostbusters

Coming to us is another fabled comedy movie not inspired by an SNL sketch, but written by and starring some of SNL's most famous alumni.

Ghostbusters shows us how the occult can be funny. How three scientists form a business in downtown New York for the sole purpose of hunting and catching ghosts. After their jobs as paranormal studies professors at Columbia University falls through, Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) each take it upon themselves to open up a ghost-busting business in New York City, dubbing themselves "Ghostbusters". The movie takes you one a ride as they have a montage of catching ghosts, showing the world that yes indeed ghosts exist and these are the guys to call if you hear or see anything spooky in your house, just as the lyrics to the theme song say. "If there's something strange in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!" Standard run of the mill ghosts fill their time and manpower...

...but while that's going on, a greater evil manifests itself in the bowels of one New York apartment building on 55 Central Park West. Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) finds an evil presence in her refrigerator. Soon, two hell hounds of unspeakable horror come to life: Vinz Clortho, the Keymaster and Zuul, the Gatekeeper. Together, the two will meet and unleash the power of Gozer, the Gozerian. The two hounds possess Dana and Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) and meet up on the roof of 55 Central Park West, allowing Gozer the Gozerian to be revived. With the help of fourth Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), the Ghostbusters walk onto the roof, do battle with evil and vanquish Gozer in his newest form: that of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

Obviously, this movie is a classic simply for its star power. Each one of the guys in this movie has gone on to do other great things. I mean, Bill Murray needs no introduction whatsoever. If you don't know who Bill Murray is then you're living under a rock...a very big and dense rock. Harold Ramis would direct National Lampoon's Vacation not just a year before this movie was released. Aykroyd would have a storied career playing several memorable characters, both main and supporting. Ernie Hudson would go on to roughly do the same thing, to the point where you can point him out and say "That's Ernie Hudson!" Then Sigourney Weaver would go on to star in probably one of the greatest sequels ever made in Aliens. Rick Moranis would have one of the most storied comedy careers imaginable before disappearing from the limelight by choice later on in life. Even Annie Potts would go on to voice Bo Peep in the Toy Story movies.

Give Ghostbusters a watch. I love it for its comedy, its science-fiction representation and its somewhat spooky atmosphere. Not "scary" spooky, just "commedically toned" spooky.