Do you consider Ghostbusters (1984) a horror movie?

[Riv86672]

Most will agree Ghostbusters is one of the funniest movies of the eighties (if not all time), but, is there an actual horror movie hiding inside all that classic comedy?

[caj]

No, I consider it a comedy.

I will admit that it has a few scares in it though. It's been a long time since I've seen it but I seem to remember a scene where one of the main characters comes across the spirit of an old woman. The spirit seems quite calm and then all of the sudden becomes aggressive and screams at the character and I jumped in my seat.

[LordLeviathan]

a comedy with horror elements

[j9ac9k]

It has a few "scares", *BOO!!* but I wouldn't call it horror. Although one could easily make a horror movie with the same script.

[Alan2099]

It's not a horror movie, but if you were doing some kind of Halloween Horror Movie Marathon, it wouldn't be that out of place.

[WebLurker]

Always saw it as a comedy.

[Powerboy]

Of course there is the potential for a horror movie but it's a comedy.

To paraphrase Stephen King, the first Alien movie had the potential to be science fiction but it's horror. Star Wars had the potential to be science fiction but it's fantasy. It's all in what the main intent is.

[DrNewGod]

It's as much a horror movie as Blazing Saddles is a Western.

[Jackalope89]

a comedy with horror elements

This. Like Mummy, Mummy Returns, Scooby-Doo, and even Army of Darkness (for me), while it had horror elements, it was more spice on top of the comedy/action than real horror for me.

[Riv86672]

It's as much a horror movie as Blazing Saddles is a Western.

Blazing Saddles IS a western, though.

[BeastieRunner]

It is a sci-fi comedy. The comedic elements come from the absurdist nature. The franchise could easily go horror but the ghosts are interdimensional beings and they use speculative science to defeat them. The horror is incidental at best since the sci-fi takes center stage.

The dry humor from their reactions to the absurd nature make it a classic.

[Gaastra]

It's a "scare comedy" like gremlins. But it's listed as a "family film" many times.

The cartoon had some scary parts for kids also but countered it with comedy parts.

The game did this also. Scary one second and funny the next.

[Vegeta]

Horror-comedy? Supernatural-comedy? Kind of falls into the same sweet spot as "Beetlejuice" and "Army of Darkness." The Terror Dogs and librarian ghost always terrified me as a child, regardless of how funny the cast is throughout the rest of the film.

It's sort of how "Alien" and "Terminator" are both considered science fiction, even though they are also basically 80's slasher films complete with final girl heroines.

[Cyke]

I love Ghostbusters. It's probably my all-time favorite movie. But yeah, it's primarily a comedy with some horror elements. And if I watch a *truly* scary supernatural horror/thriller, I'll watch the original to cleanse the palette, and just pretend that the Boys in Grey would wrap up those other movies on a regular Tuesday.

In many ways I wish it were scarier, and in a sense I get the feeling that it would end up making the movie even funnier, since going to one extreme can help push the other extreme, like Cabin in the Woods. And maybe I've watched all the movies too much, but it was even more apparent with the 2016 reboot -- there aren't really that much in stakes since everyone (pretty much) lives in the end; Dana, Louis, even Janosz and Oscar are okay. Not that Ghostbusters needs to be outright murder porn, but it's already supernaturally grotesque, and so the seeds are there for some extremes.

I also remember as a kid being much more scared of the cartoon than the movies, maybe because the cartoon had a better grasp of a spooky atmospheric thriller with tension. So you don't even need to push it beyond PG-13, either. Stranger Things is comfortably PG-13, but there's still plenty of risk (and even death) to drive up the stakes.

[Joker]

It’s ominous, though. It’s not a horror movie, but it’s got atmosphere when it wants it. It’s spooky.

I think part of what makes it so good is that it straddles the lines. You can’t pin it down to one thing. I think that it does all these things so well is what makes it such a great movie.