Yesterday, I saw a horror movie instead of seeing a horror movie.  The difference is that one is meant to be a comedy, and the other is likely a steaming pile of garbage.  I viewed the one played for laughs, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.  The one I did not see is Immaculate.  Please know that I intend to discuss in detail the former, but I could not help but alert you to the latter.  Actually, I will save my fury for my fourth paragraph, but in the meantime, I pose the question: why do scary films have to be demonic?  More specifically, and speaking to the giant axe I have to grind against this nonsense, why do they have to exploit Catholic imagery?  I do have a stock answer for this, which focuses on latent anti-Catholicism in this country.  I pray that it is that shallow of an explanation, though that is bad enough.  I get that it is hard for me to base opinions on a trailer, but given what it contains, I am not sure what else there is to look at with it.  I am also not here to tell you that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is some vast improvement, though if you are looking for a new theatrical release, by everything that is good and holy I hope you choose it.

The first year we visit in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is, oddly enough, 1904.  Firefighters respond to the same building that the future Ghostbusters will inhabit, which at this time houses the Manhattan Adventurer’s Society.  Instead of putting out flames, these early first responders find a room of men encased in ice, a phonograph playing a strange language, and an Indian woman in armor clutching a ball with indecipherable letters on it.  We then jump ahead to the descendants of Dr. Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis, not pictured) who have taken up the title job.  We find them, with daughter Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon) and her boyfriend and science teacher Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), driving their familiar car Ecto-1, in pursuit of a giant eel-like specter through the streets of Manhattan.  In the back are Callie’s children, the fifteen-year-old Phoebe Spengler (McKenna Grace), who takes after her nerdy grandfather, and the wise-cracking eighteen-year-old son Trevor Spengler (Finn Wolfhard).  Though they successfully trap what is basically an undead kite, it does the usual amount of damage to the surrounding area.  This lands Gary and the Spenglers (band name!) in Mayor Walter Peck’s (William Atherton) office, the Ghostbusters’ nemesis from the first film (1984).  As usual, Mayor Peck threatens to prosecute them, or at least take away their proton packs, and he sees the fact that they employ a minor as probably the most dangerous part of their work.  It is not just city hall that gets on Callie and Gary’s case.  The legacy Ghostbusters, for lack of a better term, led by original team member Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), feel that they are taking too many risks.  This is underscored by the old containment field in the basement in which they keep the ghosts they capture, which apparently has not been replaced since the 1980s.  It could be its age or the fact that it is probably being overloaded that is leading to it behaving in a non-optimal manner.  In any case, Phoebe is told that she is no longer allowed to go on calls with the adults.  She tries to argue, citing her experience and relative wisdom, but Callie remains firm.  Thus, she looks on dejected while they all drive away to respond to another ghost sighting.  Meanwhile, we catch up with another ghostbusting old-timer, Dr. Ray Stantz (Dan Akykroyd), who is running a shop peddling paranormal items and making a YouTube channel to showcase some of what people bring him.  After the cameras shut off, in walks Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani).  He has come to get fifty dollars for a number of trinkets, among them the same sphere as at the beginning of the movie.  When Dr. Stantz attempts to get a spectral reading off it, it triggers an icy reaction that travels all the way to Ghostbuster headquarters, specifically the containment field.  Later that night, with everyone else out ghostbusting again, Phoebe goes for a walk by herself.  Ending up in the park, she sets up a chess set and begins moving pieces.  She is only half surprised when an unseen force begins moving the opposing side, having encountered this sort of thing in her time.  This turns out to be Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), a ghost forever in the form of a teenager, the flames on her aura belying her fiery death.  They strike up a friendship that Phoebe must keep secret given her family’s trade.  Speaking of which, the living person to whom Phoebe turns for comfort is Dr. Stantz.  Along with him, they take the ball to Winston’s new ghostbusting base where they have set up a number of ghoul prisons for the study of the afterlife.  There is a machine in the lab that extracts spirits from inanimate objects.  When they put the ball into it, it nearly destroys the facility.  As it is experimented on, Dr. Stantz, his assistant (Logan Kim), and Phoebe head to the library to consult ancient languages expert Dr. Hubert Wartzki (Patton Oswalt).  Dr. Wartzki identifies the ball as containing an evil spirit, which can only be opened using long forgotten words.  Seeing that there is truly more to this item than they realize, they track down Nadeem.  In his apartment, they find a number of items related to Garraka, the monster trying to get out of the ball.  They also learn that Nadeem’s family have an affinity with fire, his grandmother apparently being the woman from the beginning.  Unfortunately, it also turns out that Phoebe’s new friend from beyond the grave is also working for Garraka.  Hence, Phoebe is easily manipulated into helping open Garraka’s round prison, setting off the mid-summer ice age you see in the trailer.  From here, it takes all the Ghostbusters, new and old, to defeat Garraka at the old fire house, including Phoebe lacing her proton pack with brass in order to defeat their foe.  Everyone is happy to have the regular warmth back, and Gary and the Spenglers ride off to chase down more specters as the movie ends.

A Ghostbuster’s job, it seems, is never truly over if Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is any indication.  I can say the same for my work with The Legionnaire.  That is why I am talking about two movies in this review.  They may seem disparate, but broadly speaking, they focus on the paranormal.  Having some hijinks with the departed in spectral form is sort of okay in the case of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, though the service it must give to this cast threatens to see spiral out of control at several moments.  There is a faint thread with Phoebe’s arc, but it does its best to obfuscate it with a ton of cinematic distraction.  All the same, it could be worse and I would still rather watch it any day of the week, and twice on Sunday, than Immaculate.  Again, I will admit to not seeing this one, nor do I ever intend to ever put it in front of my eyeballs.  Catching the trailer once was plenty for me.  I did read some reviews on it, and nothing I have seen has improved my impression.  In layman’s terms, it is a film about a virginal birth given by a nun (played by Sydney Sweeney) that appears to be demonic.  What is almost as bad is that several of the articles I saw want to put a new word into our cinematic vocabulary: “nunsploitation.”  I get angry enough when I see depictions of the Catholic Church being in league with evil.  But, let us, for the moment, take out the religious aspect of this discussion.  God is love, and I will leave it at that as a reminder of just how evil is such a representation.  Let is take a closer look at this invented term.  It combines the words “nun” (obviously) and “exploitation.”  In our modern society, we have come a long way in empowering women in terms of telling them that they should not be objects for our transactional use.  Apparently, and I know this will not be a shocker to some, we still have a long way to go.  Why is it okay that we can use female religious in this manner?  Does our culture allow this because we know they cannot fight back?  Are we bullies, no better than despots of the world like Vladimir Putin?  Okay, I am getting a bit out there, I understand, but I am truly angered by this movie.  And yet, let us compare it to Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.  Phoebe is trying to help a tortured soul, not allow herself to be controlled by evil.  And when that happens, she is able to work against it, not seemingly allow it to happen.

A different issue I have, and I promise this one is specifically with Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, is its fixation on the afterlife.  The Catholic Church has legitimate and serious concerns about trying to deal with so-called ghosts.  We may think that some of these spirits may be benign, as Melody appears.  In reality, though such things are truly beyond our full comprehension, there is something potentially demonic going on with such spirits.  In a sense, I feel like movies like this at least partially mirror these dangers.  After all, they are ghost “busters,” not ghost “befrienders.”  Yet, the peril lies not only in the potential loss of life, limb, and/or property.  It is a literal danger to your soul.  The enemy uses all kinds of tricks in order to lure us into his traps.  We see this especially with Phoebe and her interactions with Melody.  Phoebe admits to being fascinated with spirits, and her and Melody talk about what happens to somebody after they die.  Melody muses about floating into space, but Phoebe has a more supposedly practical response.  The living person mixes physics and philosophy, relating the process to becoming “one with the universe.”  This sort of new age thinking, when I am feeling positive about humanity, I like to think is an echo of how we used to believe that we would go to Heaven, hopefully.  In any case, we see Melody’s demonic trickery at work.  She plays to Phoebe’s sympathy by talking about her ghostly task of wanting to re-unite with her parents in the beyond, whatever that may be.  This leads to Phoebe showing Melody how a living person can separate their soul from their body with one of the Ghostbuster’s new machines.  Gerraka had been using Melody to manipulate Phoebe, needing a still breathing person to recite the incantation to free him.  Because of this, everyone in New York City almost dies, perhaps even the entire world.  Do you see now why the Church might frown on people messing with spirits?

Because of these Catholic teachings, I cannot give Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire a ringing endorsement.  Aside from having a number of plot holes and general insanity, I worry that it might encourage people to do things not safe for their souls.  At the same time, as I said in the introduction, if you must see a new movie this weekend, please, I am literally begging you, do not watch Immaculate.