Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)

Film and Plot Synopsis

In Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the Spengler family returns to where it all started – the iconic New York City firehouse – to team up with the original Ghostbusters, who’ve developed a top-secret research lab to take busting ghosts to the next level. But when the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an army of ghosts that casts a death chill upon the city, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second Ice Age. (Courtesy of Sony Pictures)

‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ Movie Summary

In July 1904, in New York City, firefighters are called to an Explorers Club where they find a room full of men frozen to death in nearly absolute zero temperatures. In the room, a phonograph plays a record that contains a mysterious chant in an unknown language. The only survivor in the room is a woman in a strange suit of armor who sits traumatized against the wall with a bronze orb in her hands.

The film then jumps to modern day New York City. Callie Spengler (Carrie Coon), her boyfriend Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), and Callie’s children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) have restarted Callie’s father’s (Harold Ramis) former business, the Ghostbusters. The foursome chase the Hell’s Kitchen Sewer Dragon through the streets of the city before catching the large ghost with a flying ghost trap.

Unfortunately, the Ghostbusters’ adventure causes damage and chaos throughout the city. They are summoned to the office of Walter Peck (William Atherton), the current mayor of New York City and longtime opponent of the Ghostbusters. Once again, Peck threatens to shut down the Ghostbusters, most specifically for allowing 15-year-old Phoebe to work in the field as a minor. To appease the mayor, Callie suspends Phoebe from any further field work until after she turns 18. Phoebe is angry at the decision and focuses her frustration on her mother, while Gary struggles with his role as the children’s unofficial father figure.

One night, Phoebe sneaks out of the house to play chess by herself in Central Park. Once there, she encounters a ghost named Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), who died in a fire with her own family when she was 16 years old but for some reason has not been able to transition to the afterlife yet. Phoebe and Melody bond and become confidantes.

Meanwhile, Trevor and Phoebe’s friend Podcast (Logan Kim) has taken a job collaborating with Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) at Ray’s Occult Books. Podcast has convinced Ray to participate in a YouTube show where Ray examines items brought in by the public to see if they have any supernatural value. One customer, Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani), sells Ray an orb that belonged to his deceased grandmother, who was the woman in the armor at the beginning of the film. When Ray tests its PKE readings, the orb unleashes a psychic charge that causes natural disasters and damages the wall around the Ghostbusters’ firehouse’s ecto-containment unit, which is still being used after 40 years.

If you weren’t a Spengler, you’d be answering phones. Phoebe Spangler (Mckenna Grace)

The next day, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) and Ray inform Phoebe, Callie, and Gary that the storage unit has been dangerously close to capacity for years. Winston takes the Spengler family to his privately owned Paranormal Research Center where Phoebe and Trevor’s other friend, Lucky Domingo (Celeste O’Connor), is working. Winston shows them a larger storage unit that they will eventually transfer all the ghosts to, but he also informs them that the process will take years. The Spenglers are also introduced to Dr. Lars Pinfield (James Acaster), who is improving the Ghostbusters’ equipment and conducting experiments on captured ghosts. One of the new contraptions is a device that can pull ghosts from inanimate objects, such as the orb.

A few days later, Pinfield tries to pull the spirit from the orb, but the process is unsuccessful and ultimately overloads the facilities systems. Pinfield, Lucky, and Trevor visit Nadeem to learn more about the orb and discover that the orb was hidden in a brass-lined chamber in Nadeem’s grandmother’s apartment. They learn that Nadeem is also charged with mystical energy, and Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) determines that Nadeem has some latent pyrokinetic powers. That night, Melody visits Phoebe at the firehouse and takes special interest in the containment unit. After Melody leaves the firehouse, she has a conversation with an unknown entity that is using Melody to manipulate Phoebe.

Ray, Phoebe, and Podcast continue to research the orb and visit Dr. Hubert Wartzki (Patton Oswalt) at the New York Public Library. Dr. Wartzki explains that the orb is a supernatural prison for a malevolent god, Garakka (Ian Whyte), who once sought to conquer the real world with his ability to telepathically control ghosts as his unwilling army. Garakka also had the ability to lower temperatures to absolute zero when feeding upon fear, which Ray refers to as the Death Chill. Wartzki explains that Garakka became trapped in the orb after he battled with four sorcerers, the Fire Masters, who used weapons of fire and brass. Wartzki also explains that Garakka briefly escaped in 1904 where he killed all the members of an archaeological society before being imprisoned again by one of the descendants of the original Fire Masters. Wartzki plays a phonograph cylinder of the chant made by the archeological society’s members that freed Garakka for Ray’s group. A possessing ghost known under Garakka’s control attempts to steal the cylinder. Phoebe uses portable Ghostbusters’ equipment from Ray’s motorcycle to stop the possessing ghost, which results in the destruction of the cylinder and the architecture of the library. Peck uses Phoebe’s unauthorized actions as an excuse to seize the firehouse and impound the Ghostbusters’ equipment.

Callie and Gary are angry with Phoebe for disobeying their rules. Phoebe runs away to see Melody. Feeling only connected to the lonely spirit, Phoebe takes Melody to Winston’s lab to use Pinfield’s extraction equipment to temporarily turn herself into a ghost so that she and Melody can physically interact on the same plane of existence. However, Garakka takes control of Phoebe’s ghost body to control her human body which he uses to speak the chant to free him from the orb. Melody confesses to Phoebe that she made a deal with Garakka to free him in exchange for his help in traveling to the afterlife. Lucky arrives and attempts to use a proton pack to stop Garakka, but the ghost’s powers even freeze the electrical discharge from the weapon as well as most of the city.

The Ghostbusters realize that Garakka plans to release the ghosts trapped in the firehouse’s containment unit as his ghost army. All the Ghostbusters, past and present, including their friends such as Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts), rally at the seized firehouse to make their last stand. Nadeem uses the additional time to try to develop his pyro-kinetic abilities. When Garakka arrives, he quickly overpowers the Ghostbusters whose various weapons cannot harm him. Garakka breaks open the containment unit, which begins freeing the captured ghosts. Phoebe uses an altered proton pack lined with brass to fight Garakka, which has some effect. Melody joins forces with the humans and uses her lighter to start a flame that Nadeem can use to fight Garakka. While Phoebe and Nadeem keep Garakka restrained, Ray reconfigures a ghost trap to capture Garakka.

In the aftermath, Melody finally enters the afterlife and rejoins her departed family after apologizing to Phoebe. The city begins defrosting from the ice, and the Ghostbusters are once again hailed as heroes much to the chagrin of Mayor Peck. Phoebe is reinstated as an active Ghostbuster and recognizes Gary as her father. The Ghostbusters go back to work and begin rounding up the escaped ghosts including the Sewer Dragon.

In a mid-credits scene, several mini-Stay-Puft Marshmallow men steal a large tractor trailer that is filled with Stay-Puft Marshmallows from a truck stop.