‘Ghostbusters’, made in 1984, feels like it is from a very different age. Library catalogues are all paper-based, no one has mobile phones, and the special effects look ropey by the standards of CGI. But the story here is quite a charming and eccentric one, as a trio of university researchers who work in the area of the paranormal are dismissed from their positions on the grounds that their work is not sufficiently scientific. So, they set up their own ghostbusting business, on the most skeleton of staff, only to find that they are in demand when an ancient demon seizes control of a Manhattan skyscraper.

The ending is somewhat abrupt and unfinished, but what ‘Ghostbusters’ has in abundance is old fashioned charm. It feels like New York City is one of the characters, and there are plenty of eccentric and over-the-top personalities here (Rick Moranis as an apartment neighbour of Sigourney Weaver who doesn’t seem to get the hint that she really isn’t all that interested is one of the stand outs) that when the apparitions appear we already feel that we have seen enough folly, mayhem and larger than lifeness.

Younger audiences may go to see ‘Ghostbusters’ for the special effects, but the emphasis on character and the forging of relationships is also key to this disarming buddy movie where it is the misfits, previously dismissed as charlatans (Bill Murray’s Venkman doesn’t pretend to be otherwise), end up saving the world and get to bask, briefly, in the glory of being heroes. Considering the end of the world is at stake, it could have backfired massively to make the disaster secondary to the dialogue, characterization and comedy. The greater the disaster, the more laidback and sardonic Venkman becomes – after all, he is only in the parapsychology business to date women who he hopes will be gullible enough to fall for his charms (this admittedly doesn’t sit so well after forty years) – and there is a sweet underdog element to this caper.