‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’: The Easter Eggs From the Classic Movies
If it wasn’t immediately clear from the trailers filled with props and even archival audio from the original movie, Ghostbusters: Afterlife is stuffed with references and callbacks to the original 1984 Ghostbusters. Director Jason Reitman has made his Ghostbusters one giant tribute to his father Ivan’s. Every conceivable element of the first Ghostbusters gets a shoutout. (In my review, I compared Afterlife to Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the TV meme from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood for 125 straight minutes.)
A lot of the callbacks are obvious; if you’ve ever watched a Ghostbusters you’ll recognize the proton packs and the traps and the jumpsuits. A few, though, are a little bit more obscure and require a [pushes up glasses] deeper knowledge of Ghostbusters lore to spot them. Luckily, I saw the first Ghostbusters approximately 14,000 times as a child, so I am here to help with the following list of fun Ghostbusters nods (and one Ghostbusters II nod — just one!) in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.