Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire Full Score Analysis

Troy Benjamin

March 22, 2024

Ghostbusters Frozen Empire (2024)

It’s always a pleasure to hear a new film score, doubly so when I get the rare chance to absorb and reflect on a new Ghostbusters film score. With Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Rob Simonsen composed a lovely tribute both to Elmer Bernstein’s original 1984 score AND the film scores of the 80’s we’ve come to know by heart. With the latest installment, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, composer Dario Marianelli takes themes from Elmer Bernstein, Rob Simonsen, and adds his own artist stamp to them. The result is a wonderful, big, sweeping score. With hints of the familiar and a lot of new music to pour over. There are a few new key themes that Marianelli has introduced, including a new romantic theme akin to Dana’s Theme from the original, and a new motif dedicated to the ancient Ghostbusters that have come before.

Marianelli’s score also holds the distinction of being the first Ghostbusters film that doesn’t contain a lot of needledrop, or popular music by other artists throughout. The original film obviously had a chart-topping soundtrack with all the artists Arista Records wanted to throw at the film. Ghostbusters II likewise with MCA. Answer the Call had a pretty rocking soundtrack, albeit so many variations and samplings of the Ray Parker Jr. theme song included, it may be what has given pause in the last two films from overusing the theme. Ghostbusters: Afterlife had several really great Americana cues and a full-volume featuring of the Buzzcocks’ Boredom. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire features only two needledrop songs: “Love is Strange” by Mickey and Sylvia (which will be familiar to fans of the 80’s Dirty Dancing), and a brief instance of diegetic music heard at the beach through a sunbathers’ radio. So the score has to do all of the heavy lifting throughout the film.

As has become custom since the long-awaited release of Randy Edelman’s amazing Ghostbusters II score, GBHQ is going to attempt to breakdown each of the music cues that appear on the soundtrack, provide a little commentary, and get a better understanding of the new music that we’ve been gifted with. If you haven’t seen the film, spoilers are plenty in the text below since detailing action on-screen to mirror the score is necessary.

Got your copy queued up and ready? Let’s go!

Manhattan Adventurers Society

Where Ghostbusters: Afterlife’s score had a lot of heavy-lifting to set the mood through a variety of studio vanity cards, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’s first music cue begins right as we see the Ghost Corps logo. The Yamaha DX-7, played by Peter Bernstein is front and center as that familiar synth chime kicks things off. While I wish the chime could have hit on that Columbia Pictures logo, since the studio is celebrating its 100th anniversary, they get a big and sweeping card with their theme. Which is fitting, and it’s great that Ghostbusters gets to be a part of this big studio celebration. Maybe from this point forward, the Yamaha chime becomes synonmous with the Ghost Corps logo? That would be fitting.

Some dark and ominous tones replicate the same draw that pulls you into the world of the film that Rob Simonsen created for Afterlife, but this go-round the Yamaha takes a little chime walk as we see the Ghostbusters firehouse. But wait, something is different. A lower third informs us this is the firehouse in 1907 as a steam bellowing horse drawn fire wagon bursts out the firehouse doors. This flashback sequence is fantastic and a welcome addition to Ghostbusters - our first period look to the past in the series. Marianelli’s score keeps tempo with a ticking clock sense of urgency as we follow the firefighters to a call. Dark bass-heavy piano and a large orchestra hit jar us from the spooky — there’s a little bit of a music edit here specific to the soundtrack that skips over the entirety of silence where the firefighters discover the frozen adventurers and straight to our look inside the orb at Garraka’s glowing, ominous eyes opening and then we’re into Ray Parker Jr.’s iconic them— wait a second…

Here we get to a moment that I’m sure will be widely debated and I was, frankly pretty surprised by: rather than the cold opening leading into a refrain from Ray Parker Jr.’s needle drop, Kenan and Marianelli have instead chosen to play a minor chord sting from the bouncy Ghostbusters rag theme over the materializing no-ghost logo and title. Timing-wise, I have a feeling it could have gone either way, and perhaps there even was an alternate edit at some point in post production where that RPJ song kicked into high gear over the logo just like the first two films. But here is something cool and unique.

Personal preference, I think the pop tune kicking into gear would have juxtaposed and really built energy into the Ecto-1 tearing through rush hour traffic in the next few shots. But what I think happened here was, Ghostbusters: Afterlife had a solemn challenge of putting a title card after the on-screen death of a character. If that character would have been a no-name victim of a ghost encounter, the energy is different and perhaps the Parker Jr. theme would have worked going from the attack into a title card. But this was the death of Egon Spengler and, sadly for the real world, seeing how Harold Ramis would be written out of the series. The theme song wouldn’t have been appropriate. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire has the luxury of that aforementioned setup, but also chose not to give the movie theaters’ sound system a booming treat with the theme song and found a middle ground between what happened in Afterlife and what happened in the original two films. I’m guessing that, as the film is a passing of the torch, so too are we thematically passing the torch here too. The theme was for the OG’s in the 1980’s. The new crew either hasn’t earned that theme yet, or they’re forging their own territory where the bouncy Ghostbusters rag composed by Elmer Bernstein is their Hail to the Chief.

How do you feel about it? Let’s hear in the comments.

The Sewer Dragon

Arguably one of the best action sequences in the film, and possibly topping the Muncher chase in Afterlife as my favorite in-motion Ghostbusting scene, the Spengler Family chases the serpentine New Jersey Sewer Dragon through the busy streets as the aging Ecto-1 provides a few additional challenges for the team. A pulsating action cue with some sweeping orchestral lifts keeps the energy high at the top of the cue along with a few Mickey Mouse-d “uh oh” moments as obstacles are encountered. A military march of the Ghostbusters rag confidently tells us that this isn’t the Spenglers’ first rodeo, and they’re in charge, despite how things may look on screen.

At about the 2:40 mark, Marianelli starts to show us how his score might be a little different from his predecessors: a very Gothic and cathedral sounding rise of organ and percussion makes everything sound big. An almost Phantom of the Opera or more even Danny Elfman-esque moment that musically sets this score apart. Randy Edelman had a similar instinct in the Ghostbusters II score, to include these large organ and choir moments and it’s fun to hear Marianelli venture into similar territory as it really fits the world of Ghostbusters well.

FIREHOUSE

I’ve heard both Jason Reitman and Gil Kenan on a couple occasions refer to the family living in the firehouse in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as being akin to The Royal Tenenbaums: a family living on top of one another in a place that shouldn’t be housing a family of four. This wonderful cue accompanies a shot that would make Wes Anderson proud, moving from window to window to show the residents interacting with one another. Curiously, there’s a heroic establishing shot of the Hook and Ladder No. 8 that pulls us out of the Mayor Peck scene and a sweeping music sting that isn’t present here on the soundtrack. This one’ll take some future viewings and listenings to determine, but I’m wondering if it’s a music edit from a piece in the score elsewhere.