Although there were some pretty traumatising scenes in the original Ghostbusters it looks as though Paul Feig wants to make the reboot even scarier.
During an interview with Empire Magazine, the acclaimed comedy director revealed that he wants his Ghostbusters reboot to top the original when it comes to big scares.
“I want ours to be scarier than the original, to be quite honest,” he said. “Katie Dipold and I are so focused on wanting to do scary comedy. We don’t want to hold back.”
But don’t worry – it seems that while Feig rather fancies making an 18-rated Ghostbusters, he’s definitely making this one PG-13.
“The reason I do a lot of R-Rated comedies is that you want a movie to feel honest,” he said. “But the Ghostbusters world doesn’t need that level of swearing. We’ll have to be PG-13 with this one. I would like to make it R-Rated, but I won’t. You want the biggest number of people to watch it and not be put off by it.”
Of course, R-Rated horror movies aren’t exactly uncommon… but with Feig at the helm, it seems he’s more interested in amping up the sex-factor, swearing and those little gross-out moments that make you wonder why you’re watching his movies in the first place.
But can he really improve the Ghostbusters formula by making it scarier? To be honest, I’m not so sure…
The Ghostbusters franchise is clearly based on the horror of the supernatural… but let’s be clear – at the heart of it, the original film is a comedy. It’s a traditional buddy comedy all the way. And while the thrills and scares of the supernatural horrors helped keep things fresh, do they really need to top that for the upcoming reboot?
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“I have too much respect for the original one [to do a sequel],” said Feig. But is this really respect that we’re seeing? “There’s also the feeling that once the world knows ghosts and has seen them busted on such a large scale, they run the risk of becoming pedestrian. There’s something fun about introducing our world, which has never seen ghosts to the phenomenon of ghosts. I love origin stories and to introduce new characters.”
It seems to me that Feig has been tasked with a rather tricky prospect – create something new and fresh out of a film that’s looked back on with sentimentality.
But I can’t help thinking that making the film bigger and ‘scarier’ is the wrong way to go. Will it work? For now, we’ll have to wait and see. But a lot of fans are waiting with bated breath.
Will the Ghostbusters reboot be any good? Should they be looking to make the reboot scarier than the original? Let us know what you think in the comments below…
