Aside from Sony trying to make the most of the intellectual property on its shelves, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” is also the latest Hollywood effort to nail the niche genre of family-friendly horror. Sony/Columbia pulled this off with 2015’s “Goosebumps” and its follow-up “Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween,” both of which were modest mid-budget box office successes. Disney also took a swing (and missed) last year with “Haunted Mansion.”
“Ghostbusters” perhaps wasn’t the best source material for family-friendly scares in the first place, what with the original movie’s notorious ghost blowjob scene and a theme song that declares, “Bustin’ makes me feel good.” The trailers for “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” also seemed to kind of forget about children as a target audience, instead milking nostalgia for a movie that came out decades before the current generation of kids were born. And its PG-13 rating means that, in the eyes of the MPA at least, “Frozen Empire” is no more family-friendly than “M3GAN” or “Five Nights at Freddy’s” — two box office megahits that were marketed as straightforward horror films. Maybe that’s what the kids really want.
Next week, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” will face another challenge as it contends with the arrival of “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.” Yes, it’s an empire-off. Place your bets.
