The Latest Trailer for 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' Is Here with Familiar Faces and Plenty of Nostalgia

After being delayed from 2020 due to the pandemic, this 32-years-later follow up will hit cinemas this December.
Sarah Ward
July 28, 2021

Whenever a new Ghostbusters movie reaches screens — which has been happening pretty frequently of late — we all want a few key things. We want ghosts to be busted, obviously. We want a goofily comedic vibe that suits the premise, of course. And, getting into the spirit of the franchise's theme song, we want this stint of bustin' to make us feel good.

These days, with the series almost reaching 40 years old, we must want nostalgia, too. That's what Ghostbusters: Afterlife promises to serve up, at least. In this threequel — which seems to ignore the fact that a great recent Ghostbusters film already exists, thanks to Paul Feig's wrongly maligned all-female version from 2016 — there's something strange in the town of Summerville. So, a group of kids are calling upon themselves to bust it, in a movie that swaps New York for Oklahoma and grown men (and women) for children, and jumps firmly on the Stranger Things-led 80s nostalgia bandwagon in the process.

Whether siblings Phoebe (Annabelle Comes Home's McKenna Grace) and Trevor (Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard) are seeing things runnin' through their heads or they'll catch an invisible man sleepin' in their beds is yet to be gleaned, but both the film's first trailer and its just-dropped new sneak peek lay out the basics of Ghostbusters: Afterlife's plot. The central duo has moved to the isolated locale with their mother (The Nest's Carrie Coon), and into a rundown old house they've inherited from their grandfather. It's filled with ghost traps, containers of spores, mould and fungus, beige jumpsuits emblazoned with the name 'Spengler' and a recognisable car — which is going to come in handy when the ground starts shaking for no reason, a mysterious green light begins to glow, ghosts suddenly walk the earth and tiny marshmallow men scamper around supermarket shelves.

Yes, even just from the trailer, there's plenty that's familiar about this latest addition to the Ghostbusters saga — including a few faces making a return from the original flick. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Annie Potts are all set to reprise their roles; however, Harold Ramis, aka Spengler, passed away in 2014.

The new Afterlife trailer is filled with other nods to the first two films, with writer/director Jason Reitman (Tully, The Front Runner) making both obvious and subtle references to the movies originally directed by his dad Ivan Reitman.

This time around, Paul Rudd also stars as teacher Mr Grooberson, who schools the kids in Ghostbusters lore — because this is a direct sequel to the original 1984 Ghostbusters and its 1989 follow-up Ghostbusters II.

Check out the trailer below:

Ghostbusters: Afterlife will open in Australian cinemas on December 2, 2021.

Published on July 28, 2021 by Sarah Ward
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