Summaries

Synopsis

In the pre-title sequence, a proton blast shoots out the top of a mine shaft at the Shandor Mining Company and into a swirling vortex of clouds under a midnight sky. Then an old pickup truck comes hauling out of the mine shaft and down a desolate rural road. The driver is a bearded elderly man (Oliver Cooper) obscured in the darkness of his truck's cabin. He looks down at the passenger seat and touches a ghost trap that's holding a spirit. His truck is being chased by an unseen creature that is eventually able to sideswipe the vehicle and send it crashing into a cornfield. The man stumbles out into an open field in front of an old farm house. He gets to the porch and turns around and holds up the trap baiting the unseen spirit in the corn field. The old man is Egon Spengler and he readies a foot pedal switch as invisible steps are seen advancing in the dirt across the field. When it is in position, Egon stomps the pedal and several electric towers begin to activate. But they short out before powering on the device they were intended for and Egon quickly goes inside and shuts the door. He hides the trap in a compartment under the wood floor and then sits in a chair with his PKE meter. As fog fills the room, his PKE begins to light up and it's arms extend reminiscent of when a ghost is present. Egon is attacked in his chair and the PKE meter falls to the floor and turns off. A spirit orb is seen leaving the house from outside. Back in the house, the PKE meter activates again eluding to a new ghost nearby.

We meet Callie (Carrie Coon) and her kids Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) as they are getting evicted from their apartment. Callie gets notice that her father has passed away in his farmhouse in Oklahoma and takes the kids with her to collect anything of value including the home. They find a dilapidated house full of clutter. As they're looking around, Janine (the Ghostbusters' receptionist) walks in and tells them that Callie's dad (Egon) had a lot of debt and a valueless farm. The ground begins to shake in what appears to be tremors from an earthquake, and the family huddle under a table. Phoebe spots the PKE meter under the chair her grandfather was in when he died.

Callie takes Trevor and Phoebe into town to eat after she admits to them that they will be staying there for a while until she can figure out what to do. They find that it's a very small southern town where everyone knew of the mysterious man they all called "the dirt farmer" since there was no evidence he ever grew any crops. Trevor applies to work at the burger joint because he is smitten with the girl who works there named Lucky (Celeste O'Connor).

In the following days Phoebe begins exploring the farm while using the PKE meter. She notices a chess board with an initial move made so she makes a move from her side of the board. Callie starts Phoebe in summer school and meets her teacher Gary (Paul Rudd) as she drops her off. Gary is just there to collect a paycheck and has the kids watch VHS's of old horror movies (the first one being Cujo (1983)) while he sits in the back doing research on the ongoing tremors in the area. Phoebe impresses him with her knowledge on Seismology and he explains to her that the tremor wave patterns don't match up with typical earthquakes from history. Phoebe also meets a boy in her class who calls himself "Podcast" (Logan Kim) since he's always recording for his show with his microphone.

Back at the farmhouse, Phoebe sees that another move is made on the chess board and begins playing the ghost as the chess pieces begin moving in front of her. The ghost leads her downstairs by turning on lights until she finds the ghost trap under a floor panel. She takes it to Gary where he explains what it is based on his knowledge of the famed New York siege from 1984. He shows her and Podcast old footage of the Ghostbusters commercial on YouTube. They rig the trap to a school bus battery to get it to open. They succeed and a ghost resembling one of the demon dogs from the original flies away.

Revelations come to fruition as Trevor finds Ecto-1 in the barn under a tarp and Phoebe finds Egon's lab in the basement. They both realize that their grandfather was a Ghostbuster and begin to take matters into their own hands. Phoebe repairs a proton blaster with help from Egon's invisible ghost and takes it out for a test with Podcast tagging along. Upon firing it, they hear a rustling in a nearby warehouse. They find the metal eating ghost named Muncher. They attempt to wrangle and capture him but fail. Meanwhile, Trevor repairs Ecto-1 and takes it for a joy ride where he comes upon Phoebe and Podcast who tell him what they were doing. The trio take off to capture Muncher in Ecto-1. They chase him thru the city and destroy tons of property with the proton gun. They succeed in capturing it with Egon's RC car mounted ghost trap. All the chaos alerted the police and they are subsequently pulled over and put in the town's holding cell. During their time at the jailhouse, Phoebe uses her "one phone call" option to call the number of the Ghostbusters from the commercial. Ray Stantz answers and explains that the team broke up after they had ostensibly eliminated all the ghosts. He and Egon had a falling out after Egon stole all their equipment claiming Gozer could still bring the end of the world. Phoebe tells him that Egon was killed a week ago before she is abruptly cut off by the sheriff claiming her phone time is up. Callie and Gary -who were out on a date during all of this- show up and bail them out.

Phoebe confronts her mom for not telling her who their grandfather really was. Callie counters with the history she had with her dad. She wasn't into science like he was and felt like they never bonded and he didn't care about her. That's why he left them and became a recluse on the Oklahoma farm she concluded.

The kids -feeling there's got to be a reason their grandfather would sacrifice everything to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere- find in his lab that his "dirt farm" was actually a field of hundreds of ghost traps meant to capture Gozer. They realize that his trap must have failed and set off to investigate the mine shaft once more. By this time Lucky has become close with Trevor thru work and the discovery that she is the sheriff's daughter. So she tags along to the mine with Trevor, Phoebe, and Podcast. They discover the root of all the tremors is the fact that the mine is actually a portal to the evil dead and every time Gozer attempts to raise the hoard of ghosts -along with the twin demon dogs- a series of 4 seismic activated proton guns that Egon rigged up inside turn on. They automatically cross beams and suppress the constant attempts of the ghosts trying to escape. This was the source of the recurrent tremors everyone in town was experiencing and holding Gozer back was the insurmountable task Egon had taken on alone since no one else believes him.

That same night, Gary goes to Walmart to pick up some ice cream after his unusual date with Callie. He discovers several mini StayPuft marshmallow men roaming the store causing chaos like a bunch of gremlins. He comes upon the demon dog he released earlier and gets chased out to his car and attacked just like the scene from Cujo. Back at the farmhouse, Callie finds the hidden lab and discovers that her father Egon had a memory board of all her life on the wall. Just as she realizes that he truly cared about her, the other demon dog finds her in the lab and possesses her.

The kids come home to reveal their discovery to Callie but find her possessed, before she jumps out the window and runs off towards the mine shaft. She finds Gary, who has already allowed the ghosts to start escaping by damaging the auto-proton guns that were keeping them at bay. The two "merge energies" in the mine. The kids retrieve Ecto-1 from the police impound with Lucky's help. Phoebe and Podcast are able to get the RC ghost trap and proton blaster out from the weapon holding cell by reaching in and releasing Muncher who immediately eats away the bars and escapes.

They arrive at the mine and witness Callie and Gary transforming into the demon dog forms with Gozer sitting between them. Phoebe steps out from hiding to talk to and distract Gozer while Podcast controls the RC trap and captures the demon dog possessing Callie. This releases her from dog form as she passes out. The kids escape in Ecto-1 with Callie as the Gary -still possessed in dog form- chases after them.

They make their way to the farmhouse and attempt the same trap as Egon. Callie and Phoebe stand on the porch holding the ghost trap with the demon dog that Gozer needs to become fully resurrected. Gozer appears out of the corn field and Phoebe tries to turn on the traps but they fail again just as they had the first time with Egon. Some mini StayPuft marshmallow men sabotage the equipment inside Ecto-1, which allows Gozer to release the demon dog from the ghost trap. The freed dog possesses Lucky. Just as Gozer, now back to full strength, is about to kill Phoebe, she is hit with a proton blast from behind. It's Ray Stantz who had just arrived with Peter Venkman and Winston Zeddemore! The three original Ghostbusters cross the beams and fire at Gozer. She appears subdued but then begins uncrossing the beams and blasts the Ghostbusters back causing them all to fall down. Gozer approaches them as Peter jokingly complains about the inherent troubles in their relationship. Just as she reaches them she is again captured by a sole proton beam. This time it's Phoebe, whose aim is being guided by the ghost of Egon. This is the first time his image is revealed to the audience.

The other three Ghostbusters jump up and join the battle by firing their beams as well. With the combined force of four beams once again, Gozer is suppressed but not captured. Meanwhile, Trevor and Podcast have been able to defeat the mini-Pufts and repair the sabotaged equipment, allowing Trevor to emerge from Ecto-1 and fire his proton beam at the electrical capacitors. The burst of energy charges them up. Callie throws the switch to try to turn the traps on again, and this time they successfully activate, capturing Gozer and the demon dogs.

The other three original Ghostbusters stare in amazement at the sight of the ghost form of their fallen comrade. They watch as he says goodbye, fixes Phoebe's glasses -identical to his- and gives Callie a hug. Having reconciled with his family, Egon's form fades and dissipates into the night sky. Lucky and Gary break free of the frozen dog carcasses, and the three surviving original Ghostbusters become acquainted with the Spenglers, before Winston tells them that he will fix up Ecto-1, and the three original Ghostbusters take it and their equipment back to New York City. We see an overhead shot of Ecto-1 driving with emergency lights on across a bridge in New York City as the theme song "Ghostbusters" begins.

There is a mid-credits scene where Dana Barrett Venkman (Sigourney Weaver) tests Peter Venkman's psychic powers with the same patterned cards and electro-shock machine Peter had used in his University research before he became a Ghostbuster, and a post-credits scene shows a brief conversation between Winston, who is now the wealthy head of his family, and Janine, in which Winston mentions that he has been using his resources to maintain the Ghostbusters' properties, including Ray's Occult Bookstore and the fire station that had originally served as the Ghostbusters' headquarters. This is followed by Winston opening the fire station's door to allow Ecto-1 to be driven back inside, after which we see a shot of the basement's containment system with a blinking red light.