Ingmar Bergman’s Ghostbusters
Gunnar Björnstrand ... Dr. Peter Venkman
Åke Fridell ... Dr. Raymond Stantz
Max Von Sydow ... Dr. Egon Spengler
Erland Josephson ... Winston Zeddmore
Ingrid Bergman ... Dana Barrett
Nils Poppe ... Louis Tully
Liv Ullmann ... Janine Melnitz
Bengt Ekeroth ... Walter Peck
Folke Sundquist ... Male Student
Jullan Kindahl ... Female Student
Bibi Andersson ... Gozer
Victor Sjöström ... The Librarian
A spider in a wine glass … Slimer
A cracked mirror in a finely-wrapped box … Stay Puft Marshmallow Man
In Bergman’s Ghostbusters, the plot is the same, except that when the team is confronted with Slimer during the hotel sequence, the Ghostbusters become existentially horrified by his existence and give up ghostbusting in a deep spiritual confusion. Ray and Winston turn to alcoholism and the church. Venkman and Dana’s love affair is abandoned when she is driven mad by the haunting and is committed to an insane asylum. The rest of the film follows Egon and Janine’s unrequited romance, culminating in her climbing to the roof of the Ghostbuster headquarters to commit suicide. There she meets a sobbing Venkman, where, wordlessly, they join hands and hurl themselves to their deaths. The climax is an extended conversation between Louis Tully and Walter Peck on the human need to explain the unknown through superstition. Here we learn Gozer was Tully’s childhood sweetheart who died of lead poisoning while working a summer job at a locksmith’s. The film ends with the two men opening the door to the containment chamber, which is revealed to lead to the bedroom of Dana Barret’s apartment. They spend the silent final scene of the film trying to reassemble the broken eggs on her kitchen counter. Also, there are no jokes and all the ghosts are metaphors.