The Ghostbusters theme song may proudly claim, “I ain’t afraid of no ghost!” but the truth is, most of us would run screaming if we were confronted with any of the franchise’s infamous ghouls. Even Slimer, who was softened for the Real Ghostbusters cartoon, was terrifying in his initial live-action appearance. For over forty years, the Ghostbusters franchise has produced all manner of scary apparitions, fright-inducing specters, and grotesque underworld creatures guaranteed to delight and horrify its fans in equal measure. But as with any group of freaks and monsters, some of Ghostbusters‘ ectoplasmic entities are scarier than others.
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We consulted our dog-eared copy of Tobin’s Spirit Guide and rounded up the vilest poltergeists from the Ghostbusters canon. Some of these putrid spirits have only seconds of screentime but somehow managed to create enough of an impression that they’re still giving fans nightmares to this day. Here are our pics for the 10 scariest ghosts from the Ghostbusters franchise, ranked in order from least frightening to most terrifying. Read at your own risk.
10) Mayhem
The 2016 Ghostbusters might be the most divisive entry in the franchise but it still managed to introduce a bunch of terrifying new ghosts. Chief among them is the demonic Mayhem, a giant green apparition that resembles the demon Baphomet by way of Gremlins. Fittingly, Mayhem is summoned during a performance by metal band Beasts of Mayhem. Initially mistaken for a special effect by the band, the horrible Mayhem quickly lives up to his name, sending concert goers and band members alike running for their lives.
9) Washington Square Ghost
Like the first Ghostbusters, the criminally underrated Ghostbusters II features a montage near the end of the film showing various ghosts raising hell around New York. One such ghost is the Kaiju-sized Washington Square Ghost. This massive beast is only seen for a handful of moments, but as the hundreds of fleeing Manhattanites can attest, it’s long enough for the sharp-toothed behemoth to scare the bejesus out of anyone unlucky enough to cross its path.
8) The Scoleri Brothers
The Scoleri Brothers are the first real ghosts to appear in Ghostbusters II — we’re not counting the pink slime — and they do an excellent job of setting the tone for the rest of the movie. The brothers first appear during the courtroom scene strapped to the very electric chairs they died in. Suddenly, with a flash of light, the chairs erupt into a shower of sparks, leaving the Scoleri’s free to terrorize the court and make sure millennial children everywhere never sleep again.
7) Samhain
Samhain is proof that The Real Ghostbusters was more than capable of producing ghosts just as scary as the ones in the movies. Samhain is the spirit of Halloween and desires nothing more than to plunge the world into eternal darkness by freezing time and making October 31st last forever. On top of his own seemingly limitless array of dark magics, The Trick-or-Treat terror commands an army of Halloween haunters, making him one of the most formidable phantasms the Ghostbusters have ever faced.
6) Miner Ghost
Ghostbusters: Afterlife not only reinvigorated the franchise, but it also gave fans some new takes on some old ghosts. The Miner Ghost is essentially a repeat of another ghost that appears higher on the list but that doesn’t make it any less creepy. Basically, a reanimated corpse of a long-dead mine worker, the Miner Ghost is just a zombie without the appetite for human flesh.
Thankfully, this list isn’t about originality but scaryness, and as far as we’re concerned, it doesn’t get much scarier than a walking sack of rotting meat and festering bones.
5) Bonesy
Bonesy appears in two brief scenes in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, but it’s enough time for the gruesome goblin to freeze the blood in your veins. Despite his name, Bonesy isn’t particularly skeletal — the moniker was left over from an earlier design based on Bad-To-The-Bone Ghost from the original The Real Ghostbusters toyline. Instead, we got something arguably scarier, a pale, sickly creature with sunken eyes and the needle teeth of an angler fish.
Bonesy’s brief time onscreen means he doesn’t get to do much but float around and look menacing. Hopefully, when Sony gets around to making another Ghostbusters sequel, they’ll give Bonesy a little more to do.
4) The Boogieman
There are Boogiemen, and then there’s the Boogieman from The Real Ghostbusters. You know a phantom is truly terrifying when the Ghostbusters themselves are afraid to go near it. The Boogieman lives in a labyrinthine world connected to the closet of every child in the world. Every night, the Boogieman invades the lives of innocent children, scaring them witless and relishing every second of it.
With his freakishly large head and tiny goat legs, the Boogieman turned what should have been a fun Saturday morning cartoon into a horror show.
3) Zombie Taxi Driver
Like the Miner Ghost, the Zombie Taxi Driver is just a decomposing pile of shredded flesh and muscle clinging tenaciously to a musty skeleton. But there’s a reason this particular corpse ranks higher than the previous one. The other PG movies of the time, like Star Wars and E.T., did nothing to prepare the children of the ’80s for the horrors of Ghostbusters, so for an entire generation of impressionable youths, this was their first onscreen zombie.
To this day, if you ask anyone born before 1990 about the scariest movie scenes from their childhood there’s a good chance you’ll get one of three answers: the clown scene from Poltergeist, the scene where the lady gets turned into a computer from Superman III, and the Zombie Taxi Driver from Ghostbusters.
2) Terror Dogs
We’re not sure if the Terror Dogs actually count as ghosts but the term “ghost” is used so loosely in the Ghostbuster franchise that it doesn’t really matter either way. What does matter is that they’re absolutely terrifying. Terror Dog is a bit of a misnomer. While the “terror” part is 100% accurate, the beasts aren’t so much dogs as they are giant bull-like monsters with glowing red eyes, fangs, and spikes protruding from various points on their face. Basically, they’re what you’d get if you asked a twelve-year-old to design a hellhound for the cover of a heavy metal album.
1) Library Ghost
It seems unlikely that the very first ghost in the very first Ghostbusters would also be the scariest, and yet not only is she the scariest ghost in the franchise, but she’s also one of the scariest movie ghosts period. The Library Ghost starts out looking like a sweet elderly librarian — albeit a floating, semi-transparent one — before morphing into the franchise’s most grotesque spectre.
The Library Ghost isn’t just scary because of her design, however. Her transformation is the best jump scare in the franchise and possibly one of the best jump scares in cinema.
Do you agree with us that these are the scariest ghosts in the Ghostbusters franchise, or would you have ranked them differently? Let us know in the comments.
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