Underrated

Until the past few years I'd always dismissed GB2 as a lot less than the original and hardly watched it, but you're right. You have to treat it as something else, not in the same exact genre as the original and so it can't be compared directly. The first one creeped me out as a kid - it had the amazing combination of really spooky music, frightening scenes and a cast and feel which kept you coming back for more, even though it scared me.

Having watched GB2 more because my kids want to see it as a follow-on to GB, I've come to appreciate it a lot more. It's actually quite a fun movie to see the cast all together again and some of the amusing dialogue style of the first movie, but a lot toned down. The end with the statue makes me cringe a little but it is what it is.

Criminally underrated & more inclined to be appreciated by people who aren't viewing the original with nostalgia glasses. I strongly. prefer it over the original as I feel it does a number of things better.

I recently binged all of Stranger Things and it inspired me to go back and re-watch some stuff from when I was a kid in the 80s. (Well, I turned 20 in '89.) One of the first things I did was watch the original Ghostbusters and browse related stuff. I saw people saying things like, "GB2 was not that bad, in fact it's actually really good." There were even people claiming it was better than the first one. I thought "Huh, I honestly don't remember anything at all about the sequel... I don't remember it being bad, or good, or anything." So I re-watched it for the first time last Saturday, with an open mind and generally positive attitude. It was like I'd never seen it before, but I know I saw it in theaters when it was new.

It's not the worst movie in the world, but at best it was mediocre uninspired tripe. It boggles my mind that anybody would praise it for any reason. Go to bed GB2 likers, you're drunk.