How ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ Pays Homage to the Original With Audio Easter Eggs

The proton pack from 1984’s “Ghostbusters” is back in “Ghostbusters: Afterlife.” Used in the original film by the team of paranormal sleuths played by Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson, the pack’s gun blasts a bright stream of light that sounds like a sizzling electric current followed by an explosion.That’s just one of the few aural easter eggs the film contains.Director Jason Reitman needed help on the teaser trailer for the new film, which opened Nov. 19, and contacted re-recording mixer Will Files. “The idea was this girl finds a proton pack in this abandoned barn,” says Files. “She doesn’t know what it is, and she starts it up. You hear it off-screen, and it dies. [But] by the very end [of the trailer] it comes to life.” His first instinct was to dig through the sound archives at Sony to see what material existed from the first film. ...