"Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire"
Movie Review. Comedy horror fantasy film.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a 2024 American supernatural comedy horror fantasy film directed by Gil Kenan from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jason Reitman. It is the sequel to Ghostbusters: Afterlife in (2021), the fourth mainline installment, and the fifth film overall in the Ghostbusters franchise. The film stars Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Celeste O'Connor, and Logan Kim reprising their roles from Afterlife, alongside Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and William Atherton reprising their characters from the earlier films. Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Emily Alyn Lind, and James Acaster also join the cast. Set three years after the events of Afterlife, the veteran Ghostbusters must join forces with their successors to save the world from a death-chilling god in New York City who seeks to build a spectral army.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire had its world premiere at the AMC 13 Theater at Lincoln Square in New York City on March 14, 2024, and was released in the United States on March 22, by Sony Pictures Releasing under its Columbia Pictures label. The film received mixed reviews from critics, but generally positive feedback from audiences, and become success worldwide.
Three years after the dramatic events in Summerville, Oklahoma, the Spengler family and their friends have made significant changes in their lives. Callie Spengler, her partner Gary Grooberson, and her children Trevor and Phoebe, along with their friends Lucky Domingo and Podcast, have relocated to New York City. Their goal? To assist Winston Zeddemore and Ray Stantz in revitalizing the Ghostbusters and helping them restore their paranormal business. After the group manages to successfully capture a ghost, things seem to be going smoothly—until they encounter an old adversary: Walter Peck.
Peck, a long-time opponent of the Ghostbusters, now holds a powerful position as the mayor of New York City. He is determined to shut them down, threatening to end their operations after their latest ghost-capturing success. To avoid trouble, Callie makes a tough decision and removes her underage daughter, Phoebe, from the team, hoping to keep Peck at bay. Phoebe, upset by the decision, heads to a nearby park to cool off and plays chess alone. It’s there that she meets Melody, the ghost of a teenage girl who died in a fire. Despite her frustration, Phoebe finds comfort in this new, unlikely friendship.
Meanwhile, Ray Stantz and Podcast take on a different kind of mission. They’ve been collecting cursed objects to study and better understand the supernatural forces that haunt New York City. During one of their excursions, they come across a strange brass orb inscribed with Mesopotamian Arabic markings, sold to them by a man named Nadeem Razmaadi. Intrigued, Ray examines the orb closely and concludes that it’s an apotropaic trap, a device historically used to ward off or contain evil spirits. Copper alloys, often used in such rituals since the Bronze Age, further confirm Ray's suspicions.
As Ray evaluates the orb’s psychokinetic energy levels, the object begins to emit an ominous broad-spectrum psionic energy. A chilling wave spreads from the orb to the Ghostbusters' firehouse headquarters, causing considerable damage to their ecto-containment unit, which was already nearing its capacity. Sensing the danger, Winston Zeddemore takes the orb to his company's paranormal research center, which is managed by Dr. Lars Pinfield. Using an experimental device, Lars attempts to extract any residual orenda, or spiritual essence, from the orb. However, his efforts are thwarted when the orb’s powerful psychic energy sabotages one of the research center's ecto-confinements, allowing a ghost to escape and hide within Podcast’s equipment.
Desperate to uncover more information about the orb, Lars teams up with Trevor and Lucky to confront Nadeem Razmaadi. Nadeem reveals that his grandmother kept the orb hidden in a brass-lined chamber, knowing its dangerous potential. At this point, Peter Venkman joins the team, and during their investigation, they discover that Nadeem possesses latent pyrokinetic abilities, which have a mysterious connection to the orb’s power.
While Ray, Phoebe, and Podcast continue their research, they visit Dr. Hubert Wartzki, a librarian at the New York Public Library. Wartzki informs them that the orb was created over 4,000 years ago in Southwest Asia by a group of sorcerers known as the Firemasters. Their purpose was to imprison Garraka, a phantom god who once sought to dominate humanity by bestowing the "Kusharit Umoti," also known as "The Death Chill"—a terrifying ability to kill people through fear itself. Nadeem’s grandmother was a descendant of the Firemasters, and it was she who prevented Garraka’s escape in 1904, during a ritual carried out by members of the Manhattan Adventurers' Society. Garraka had frozen the society members to death during this mock ritual, but the brass-lined chamber and the removal of his horns were what ultimately trapped him inside the orb.
As the team learns more about Garraka, the escaped ghost attempts to steal a phonographic recording of the 1904 ritual. Peck, always eager to interfere, exploits Phoebe’s involvement in the Ghostbusters' activities to force the shutdown of the entire operation. After a heated argument with her mother and Gary, Phoebe runs away, seeking solace with her ghostly friend, Melody. Together, they sneak into Winston's research center, where Phoebe uses the extraction equipment to temporarily project herself as a ghost. For two minutes, she is able to interact physically with Melody.
It’s during this interaction that Melody reveals her secret: she had been collaborating with Garraka, who had promised her safe passage into the afterlife. However, Garraka uses Phoebe’s disembodied spirit to force her physical body to recite a ritual chant that frees him from the orb. Once liberated, Garraka retrieves his horns of power from Nadeem's grandmother's secret brass-lined room and unleashes his deadly freezing abilities upon New York City.
With Garraka now loose and the containment unit at risk of being breached, the Ghostbusters rally to protect their headquarters. They are joined by Nadeem, who dons his grandmother’s Firemaster brass armor and attempts to control his newfound powers. Despite their combined efforts, Garraka overwhelms them and breaks into the containment unit, freeing several dangerous ghosts. In a last-ditch effort, Phoebe uses brass to electroplate Egon Spengler's proton pack, strengthening it. Melody, now feeling betrayed by Garraka, helps Nadeem harness his powers to weaken the phantom god. Ray and the veteran Ghostbusters, including Janine Melnitz, manage to turn the damaged containment unit into a massive ghost trap, successfully capturing Garraka.
As the city begins to thaw, Melody makes peace with Phoebe and departs for the afterlife, finally reuniting with her family. The Ghostbusters are hailed as heroes once again, with even Peck forced to support the team and reinstate Phoebe as a member. With New York safe for now, the Ghostbusters prepare to chase down the remaining escaped ghosts scattered across the city.
In a mid-credits scene, a trucker stops to grab a snack from a vending machine, leaving his Stay Puft Marshmallows-branded truck unattended. To his surprise, a group of mischievous Mini-Pufts hijack the vehicle, driving off into the unknown.
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