When I arrived at The Belcourt on Saturday night for the theater's second midnight screening of Ghostbusters, I was greeted outside the lobby by an enormous inflatable Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. The (ultimately kinda pathetic) avatar of Zuul's destruction was swarmed by a gaggle of Ghostbusters — all decked out in loose-fitting brown jumpsuits, blinking proton packs and at least one Slimer puppet. The
Tennessee Ghostbusterswere out in force and I think it's safe to say that I was in no way prepared for the scene that awaited me in front of the theater.
It isn't so much that I didn't think a regional Ghostbusters syndicate could exist, it's more that I didn't think it would exist. Going into Ghostbusters on Saturday night, I couldn't help but question if Ghostbusters was still “a thing” in the way that it was a pop-culture phenomenon in the 1980s and early 1990s.
And honestly? I'm still not sure if it is.
