Every Ghostbusters: Afterlife Easter Egg, Reference & Homage

Warning: This post contains major SPOILERS for Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

It’s fair to say that Ghostbusters: Afterlife knows where it came from: not only is it a love letter to Ivan Reitman’s 1984 original Ghostbusters, but it packs in references to wider Ghostbusters lore and many Easter eggs. Afterlife includes not only returning characters from Ghostbusters, but also secret cameos alongside the new generation of characters. It is, in other words, the right blend of fan-service and legacy intrigue.

Strangely castigated for that fan-service, Ghostbusters: Afterlife has picked up divided reviews, initially ranking it lower than Ghostbusters (2016), but that cynicism is myopic. The Paul Feig reboot failed because it didn’t pay reverence to the original, and lambasting a direct sequel for doing exactly what fans of the franchise wanted in the first place is not to be celebrated. It shows an inherent misunderstanding of what this franchise is. And crucially, Ghostbusters: Afterlife limits the appearances by the original Ghostbusters to a few minutes in total, while also setting up a future where more Ghostbusters movies – with a new team – is possible.

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The mixed Ghostbusters: Afterlife reviews aside, the movie is a treat for fans of the franchise, packing in subtle and overt nods to the original movie and the wider lore of the Ghostbusters universe. Here’s every Easter egg, reference, and homage in Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

23. Ivo Shandor Mining Company (And Summerville History)

The whole premise of Ghostbusters: Afterlife is based on the idea that notorious Gozer follower and cultist Ivo Shandor – the architect of the building in Ghostbusters (1984) that was secretly a PKE antenna to help Gozer break through – used Summerville as the source of the building’s metals. Quite why that was necessary when Shandor’s own tomb was on the site of a literal hellmouth is a little odd, but as a result, Summerville was all built by Shandor and his name is on lots of buildings, including the mining company. As another Shandor reference, foreshadowing the character’s reappearance, when Phoebe looks up the Ghostbusters commercial, the recommended videos to the side include one about Shandorian cultists. Shandor himself is played by JK Simmons in a secret (but not uncredited) cameo appearance that lasts all of a few seconds.

22. Egon (And Ray’s) Revelation 6: 12 Scripture Callback

As revealed by the trailer, Ray Stantz has biblical scripture tattooed on his arm, and the same scripture – Revelations 6:12 – is used by Egon as a warning on the entrance to the “dirt farm”. The scripture also appeared in Ghostbusters as Winston and Ray pondered the portents of the apocalypse:

Ray: And I looked, as he opened the Sixth Seal and behold there was a great earthquake, and the sun became as black as sackcloth and the moon became as blood.

Winston: And the seas boiled and skies fell.

The expansion of that quote into 6:12 includes the line about the sky turning black and the moon turning red.

21. The Zuul Statue On Egon’s Desk

When Phoebe first explores Egon’s house, she discovers a small stone statue of Zuul on his desk. Obviously, on a far more significant scale, the statue under Summerville’s mountain depicts also Gozer the Destructer and her minions, Zuul and Vinz Clortho (the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster). Gozer’s return confirms the backstory from Ghostbusters that suggested The Traveler had been to Earth before, expanding on it more specifically to tie the entity to several major catastrophes on Earth. In a surprise, Gozer is played (at least in “human” form) by Olivia Wilde.

20. Egon’s Asymetrical Book-Stacking (And The Big Hint)

The opening act of Ghostbusters: Afterlife has a big hint at Egon’s ghostly presence in his farmhouse. When Phoebe, Trevor, and Callie move in, they see a pile of books in the living room. They’re stacked precariously high and are clearly a nod back to the ones the Ghostbusters found in their hunt for the New York Public Library ghost in 1984. “Asymmetrical book stacking!” as Ray calls it is a known sign of poltergeist activity.

19. Janine Loves Egon (Or Does She?)

In a strange quirk, Afterlife doesn’t seem to follow the canon of Ghostbusters II explicitly when it comes to Janine (Annie Potts) and Egon’s relationship. She calls herself Egon’s friend, with a loaded emphasis revealing their relationship had greater depths. In Ghostbusters II, Egon and Janine have split up after the original movie brought them together, with the latter in a relationship with Rick Moranis’ Louis that isn’t mentioned here. Louis sitting the movie out makes that somewhat logical, but it feels like the canon explanation for their relationship draws more from Extreme Ghostbusters, that saw them locked in a will0they-wont-they dynamic that ultimately saw Egon’s job and ghosts get in the way.

18. Egon Still Collects “Spores, Molds, And Fungus”

As well as lots of the old Ghostbusters equipment – which obviously includes Egon’s PKE Meter and the first original proton pack that Phoebe finds – his secret underground lab also has jars of mushrooms and lots of labeled Petri dishes. This is a nod back to Egon’s now-legendary awkward “chat-up” line to Janine from the original Ghostbusters: “I collect sporesmolds, and fungus.”

17. Egon’s Chess Set Is A Touching Call-Back

Egon’s choice to communicate with Phoebe through the chess set is an interesting one in two respects: first, an issue of the Ghostbusters‘ IDW comics run saw Death challenge Egon to a game of chess to save his mortal soul (Egon’s stand-din, Eduardo, wins). More touchingly, The Real Ghostbusters confirms that Egon loves chess but has no-one to play with: him connecting with his isolated granddaughter through a shared appreciation of the game is a clever deep cut.

16. The 3 Horror Movies Mentioned In Ghostbusters: Afterlife (Including An Ivan Reitman Deep Cut)

There are three horror movies shown or mentioned in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. The first two are shown by Mr Grooberson to his class – Stephen King’s Kujo, and then Child’s Play. The third is a more personal reference. On Summerville’s cinema marquee is Cannibal Girls, which was Ivan Reitman’s second directorial feature in 1973, a decade before he took on Ghostbusters.

15. Tobin’s Spirit Guide

The book Phoebe and Podcast consult to find out the lore of Gozer and the devil dogs is Tobin’s Spirit Guide, which features heavily throughout Ghostbusters expanded lore, including the animated spin-off shows and The Video Game. It’s also the same source that Ray Stantz consults when Venkman hears a possessed Dana say the name Gozer in Ghostbusters (1984). The same book also appears in Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

14. Egon’s Crunch Bar

When Phoebe finds the Ghostbusters uniforms hidden in Egon’s underground hidden basement, she looks in the top pocket of Egon’s overalls and finds a Nestle Crunch bar. It’s a deep cut reference back to Ghostbusters, immediately after the original team are kicked out of university and Venkman says to Egon, “You…. you’ve earned this” as he hands him a Nestle Crunch bar. It’s never really explained in-universe, and was widely assumed to be product placement, but in the director’s commentary for the first movie, Ivan Reitman claims that it was a conscious idea that Egon would be constantly snacking.

13. Egon’s Twinkie Returns From Ghostbusters (1984)

In another confectionary callback to Ghostbusters (1984), when Trevor gets Ecto-1 back into vaguely roadworthy condition, the Spengler kids looks in the glovebox to discover a Twinkie, a cute callback to an Egon moment in the original movie. Egon uses a Twinkie as an analogy to explain the intense levels of psychokinetic energy in the lead-up to Gozer’s first appearance in New York.

12. The Original Ghostbusters Quotes: “Who You Gonna Call” & “There Is No Dana…”

Okay, so it’s on-the-nose, but the infamous Ghostbusters slogan “who you gonna call?”  is said by Bokeem Woodbine’s overbearing Summerville police chief (and Lucky’s father). He utters is when Phoebe asks if she, Trevor, and Podcast are entitled to a phone call when they’re arrested for joyriding in the Ecto-1. Later, when Carrie Coons’ Callie is possessed by Zuul, she almost copies Sigourney Weaver’s oft-repeated line “There is no Dana, only Zuul...”, replacing Dana with “mom”, when her kids check to see if she’s ok. For a third reused line, Phoebe tells Podcast to “switch me on” when she’s set to test the proton pack for the first time, a line mimicking Ray’s from 1984 when he first powered his pack up.

11. Ray’s Occult Books

In Ghostbusters II, when the team lose their jobs (after New York preposterously loses interest in their services mere months after they saved everyone from Gozer), Ray pays his bills by turning to bookselling. He opens Ray’s Occult Books, and while Afterlife doesn’t seem particularly beholden to the canon of Ghostbusters II, Stantz returns to the same book shop after Egon disbands the Ghostbusters.

10. Josh Gad’s Secret Cameo

Ghostbusters fan Josh Gad is one of three secret performances in Ghostbusters: Afterlife alongside Olivia Wilde as Gozer and JK Simmons’ Ivo Shandor. He provides the voice – or more appropriately the grunts – of new Ghostbusters ghost Muncher – a class 5 metal munching spectre.

9. Ghostbusters: Afterlife Continues Paul Rudd’s Baskin Robbins Gag

When Paul Rudd’s Mr Grooberson goes to Walmart and is attacked by Zuul (after discovering the possessed Mini-Puft Mallows), he buys a tub of Baskin Robbins ice cream. That is an odd little callback to Paul Rudd’s MCU role as Ant-Man, as it was the job he took after being freed from prison. As an additional strange reference, Mr Grooberson also chooses Blue Velvet flavor ice cream topping sauce, which he chuckles at, presumably because the reference to David Lynch’s controversial classic is very out of place.

8. Ghostbusters Afterlife’s Mini-Puft Mallows Have A Grim Backstory

Afterlife‘s Mini-Puft Mallows are inevitably going to emerge from Ghostbusters: Afterlife as the most marketable new element, but fans of the wider ‘Busters lore will already recognize them. The masochistic mallows originally debuted The Real Ghostbusters comics in 1989, and then returned in one-shot comic Ghostbusters: Deviations in 2016, where they were explained as the sentient bowel movements of the original Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Speaking of Stay Puft, there’s a billboard advertising the company, complete with giant mascot in Summerville, suggesting that the PR company behind them is somehow skilled enough to have wiped the whole apocalypse thing out of everyone’s memories.

7. Louis’ Hidden Tribute In Ghostbusters: Afterlife

While Rick Moranis sadly doesn’t return in Ghostbusters: Afterlife, there is a brief reminder of his part in the previous movies in Egon’s secret basement lair. The homemade colander helmet he wears in 1984’s original Ghostbusters appears among the desk detritus that Phoebe finds among her grandfather’s possessions.

6. Dana’s Dress Returns In Ghostbusters: Afterlife

When Callie is possessed by Zuul and runs off to seduce Paul Rudd’s Vinz Clortho-infected Gary, she rips off her clothes to reveal that she’s wearing the orange-gold dress that Sigourney Weaver wore in Ghostbusters when she was taken over by the Gatekeeper of Gozer.

5. Ghostbusters’ “Are You A God” Joke

At least the original Ghostbusters learned from their initial battle with Gozer in New York. When the demonic entity demands to know whether Ray is a god, it’s a callback to the original movie of course, but instead of falling into the trap, Ray remembers the advice “when someone asks you if you’re a God, you say yes!”

4. The Repeated Egon Ghost Idea & The Lost Ghostbusters 3

When he was asked in 2010 about returning to a potential Ghostbusters 3, having previously said he would turn down any approach, Bill Murray said he’d only come back as a ghost. It may not be a direct homage to that, but Egon returning as a ghost does immediately call back that scrapped plan. More pertinently, one Real Ghostbusters episode – appropriately called “Egon’s Ghost” – saw him “killed” by one of his own inventions and turned into a ghost.

3. Ray Parker Junior’s Ghostbusters Theme

It wouldn’t be a Ghostbusters movie without Ray Parker Jnr shouting “Bustin’ makes me feel good!” and mercifully, Afterlife obliges with the original version of the song over the end credits and not an updated “modern” version.

2. Dana’s Cameo & The EPS Test

In the mid-credits scene, Ghostbusters: Afterlife repurposes an infamous scene from Ghostbusters, with Bill Murray’s Venkman replaying his ESP card test with Sigourney Weaver’s Dana Barrett. He’s the test subject this time, and eventually reveals not only that he is cheating with marked cards, but also that he was a terrible person in the 1980s and used to only shock his male participants.

1. Winston’s Ghostbusters Future Set-Up & The Firehouse

The final sequence of Ghostbusters: Afterlife sees Winston Zeddemore return Ecto-1 to the New York Firehouse, bringing it “home” after Egon stole it (and seemingly ignoring the fact that Ray actually bought it). He also speaks to Janine about how important being a Ghostbuster was to him, seemingly setting up a legacy team in the future. There’s then a final shot of the Firehouse’s containment unit, with an ominous blinking light, which we’ve seen before in Ghostbusters when Walter Peck turned the unit off and flooded ghosts into New York. An ominous warning for Ghostbusters: Afterlife‘s sequel perhaps?

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