Musical Ghosts, Horrible Harlequins, Toxic Trains

Ever see a poltergeist blowing a bassoon or honking on a tuba? Now you can as Schirmer Theatrical is screening Ghostbusters, the 1984 mega-hit /pop culture-altering movie, along with a live orchestra doing the scarily intricate soundtrack. 

Ghostbusters in Concert will be touring throughout the month of October, rolling into backwater towns like Chicago, Nashville, Reno, Columbus, Fresno, and more. (Really wish they’d play the Tug Tavern as I could easily hitchhike there — only two blocks from my place.)

From Schirmer Theatrical: “Experience Ivan Reitman’s two-time Oscar and two-time Golden Globe-nominated film, screened live as an orchestra performs Elmer Bernstein’s Grammy-nominated score and Ray Parker Jr.’s Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping theme song, “Ghostbusters.”

The ear worm “Ghostbusters” title song is synonymous with the billion-dollar Ghostbusters franchise and was written by Ray Parker Jr. It landed at Number One on the Billboard Hot 100 on August 11, 1984. Don’t know how many copies it sold, but an educated guessing puts it close to 2.5 billion million.

On a tabloid side note, the song was at the center of a lawsuit, wherein Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr. for plagiarism, alleging he had copied the melody (primarily the bass-line) from Lewis’ 1983 song “I Want a New Drug”. Wikipedia™: “The case was settled out of court in 1985 for an undisclosed sum and a confidentiality agreement that prohibited discussing the case. Parker later sued Lewis for breaching the confidentiality agreement in a 2001 episode of VH1’s Behind the Music, by reasserting Parker, Jr. stole the song. Regarding his case against Lewis, Parker said, “I got a lot of money out of that.” Snap!

So while you rush to bust some tickets and/or confidentiality agreements (CLICK THIS), here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that may or may not be worthy of a Huey Lewis soundtrack… 

TERRIFIER 2 / October 6, 2022

“After mutilating sole survivor Victoria Heyes and committing suicide upon police confrontation, Art the Clown is resurrected by a sinister being a year later and begins a hunt two unsuspecting siblings in the Miles County area on Halloween night.”

A killer clown commits suicide. Wouldn’t that be “circuscision”? Heh. The first Terrifier movie came out in 2016. Quite a wait for a sequel no one wanted. Okay, that was just plain mean. Sorry — didn’t get much sleep last night; Kept dreaming about cliched clown slashers.

SLASH/BACK / October 21, 2022 (Limited theaters, Digital HD, VOD/Shudder™)

“In a sleepy hamlet nestled in the majestic mountains of Baffin Island in the Arctic Ocean, a village wakes up to a typical summer day…and 24-hour sunlight. But for Maika and her friends, the usual summer is suddenly not in the cards when they discover an alien invasion threatening their hometown.”

Aliens really need to learn Earth’s geography. A more accessible invading choice would be the Tug Tavern hamlet, nestled among majestic sticker bushes in the sleepy village of West Seattle. 

WHITE NOISE / November 25, 2022 (Limited) / December 30, 2022 (Netflix)

Jack Gladney, college professor, husband and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn asunder by an airborne toxic event, a cataclysmic train accident that casts chemical waste over his town.”

You don’t need a train accident to get an airborne toxic event. Stand behind someone who just ate The Pig Bomber Burrito™.

THE OUTWATERS / TBD 2023 (Limited)(Screambox)

“Four travelers encounter menacing phenomena while camping in a remote stretch of the Mojave Desert.”

Why — and more importantly how — does one camp in a remote part of the “no 7-Eleven™/nothing-but-dirt” Mojave Desert? More to the point, where do you do your dirty business? Among the desert’s previously pristine sand dunes? There’s your real menacing phenomena.