The original Ghostbusters from 1984 hit home video long before movies came with special features like behind the scenes featurettes and deleted scenes. But since the advent of Blu-ray and DVD discs that come chock full of bonus material, we’ve been able to see some of the deleted scenes that didn’t make the final cut of Ghostbusters. However, there are a few that still haven’t seen the light of day, and we might finally be able to see footage from one scene in particular.
The official Ghostbusters production company Ghost Corps. posted a photo yesterday revealing that they had found some previously unseen reels of footage from Ivan Reitman‘s own personal storage. One of the reels includes scenes for a sequence that was part of the original film but ended up getting cut for pacing reasons. Find out about this Ghostbusters 1984 deleted scene after the jump.
Here’s the image that Ghost Corps. posted to Facebook yesterday (via Bleeding Cool):
The deleted scene in question is on the tape that says “Fort Demering” on the side. Hardcore Ghostbusters fans have been aware of the existence of this deleted scene for awhile, referring to it as “The Fort Detmerring Ghost” scene. Here’s how it’s described by the Ghostbusters Wiki:
Ray Stantz is in the Fort Detmerring Single Officers’ Quarters, a painstakingly restored period room with a four poster bed, writing table and wardrobe hung with uniforms. Ray tries on an officer’s uniform and models in front of a full-length mirror, striking a few heroic poses. He then tests out the bed and quickly falls asleep from exhaustion. A uniform sleeve moves slightly. A sabre in its sheath begins to tap lightly against the open doorsash. A phosphorescent light streaked out in between gaps in the clothing, casting patterns over the room. Ray’s P.K.E. Meter goes off. Stantz rolled over. From inside the attire, a pink mist rose up and took on a human form. It hovered above Ray and seems to look over Ray. Ray, still asleep, rolled onto his back. The mist slithered through the curtains of the bed post and slowly descended. The ghost appears to be a beautiful young woman. She is face to face with Ray then moves down past his waist. Ray wakes up and props himself up. The ghost vanished. Ray’s belt is undone and his zipper slowly opened. Ray’s confusion turns to pleasure. Meanwhile, Winston Zeddemore is walking in the corridor outside smoking a cigarette. He heard voices and went up to the door. Winston asked Ray if everything was okay. Ray quickly yells, “Later, Man!!” Winston shrugged and slunk away.
For those that have seen Ghostbusters, you might remember that part of that description sounds familiar. That’s because we see some of that scene end up in the movie in the form of a dream sequence that’s part of a montage. In a Making Ghostbusters book from 1985, Harold Ramis explained why the full scene with Dan Aykroyd ended up being axed:
The plot was moving much too fast at this point to introduce anything even sightly extraneous. The idea behind the scene was to give Dan a love interest — a woman who’s been dead for a hundred years. But the scene was too long and it was in the wrong place in the film. We all loved the notion of Stantz having sex with a ghost, though, so Ivan came up with the idea of treating it as a dream and inserting it into the very end of the montage.
Ivan Reitman echoed those sentiments in the same book:
We were well into the main plot at this point — Dana and Louis were possessed, the apartment building was starting to go — and it just didn’t make sense to suddenly cut to this irrelevant scene of Dan getting a psychic blowjob. It wasn’t until we realized that we were a little bit short on montage material that I thought about resurrecting it.
It turns out that the footage of the female ghost had already been shot along with scenes of Dan Aykroyd in bed and whatnot, so they decided to use part of the larger scene in a different way, and the weird ghost sexual encounter dream is what we saw in the final cut.
Now that the reels of other footage have been found, I hope that we get to see whatever was shot all those years ago. We might have to wait for another anniversary release of Ghostbusters on home video, but then again, maybe the Ghost Corps. Facebook will just put the videos online for us to enjoy. That would be awesome.
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