For the past few years, Spook Central presented a Halloween treat to the community in the form of a special eBook PDF. It was never intended to be a regular tradition, but it's turned out to be that way. Whether it stays that way...who knows.

This year, Spook Central continues the new tradition with TWO eBooks. The first one is something small, and not of any consequence, but it's here for you anyway. On the Ghostbusters Books page is the Ghostbusters Theatrical Program Book (it's the first item on the page). This 8.5x11 color program book/booklet, printed on hard card stock, was given out to audience members at premiere theatrical showings of "Ghostbusters" back in 1984. It features the title logo across the front cover; the full credits across the two inside pages; and the Columbia Pictures logo, title logo, and credits block on the back cover.

The second Halloween treat is a MAJOR addition to the site and is an absolute rarity: the Ghostbusters II August 5, 1988 script draft!!! This draft is wildly different than the final film. There is no Slimer, Dana, Janosz, River of Slime, Vigo painting, or Ghost Jogger. New characters Lane Walker and Jalmar Litvinov would, in essence, become Dana and Janosz later on. Instead of the Vigo painting, the vessel of evil is a religious Icon triptych held by Jalmar. Vigo, who's Russian here, commandeers the Statue of Liberty and chases the Ghostbusters through the city streets at the film's climax. Oscar is possessed by Vigo and moves like an adult with an adult's gaze. The vehicle which we know as "Ecto-1A" is referred to as "Ecto-1". And that's just the tip of the iceberg of the differences in this draft. It truly feels like an alternate universe - but without the turtles. Major thanks to Matthew Jordan for helping me clean up the scanned pages. (Side note, the Ghostbusters II 11/27/1988 draft was not ready at press time and will be uploaded at a later date.)

A THIRD Halloween eBook treat is available if you visit my new second site/blog. The premiere post on that site will treat you to the Beetlejuice: Beginner's Guide To Seeing Ghosts theatrical promo booklet. This new site/blog will also be the home to a whole series of non-Ghostbusters Filming Locations/Shot On Site articles. If you enjoyed Spook Central Shot On Site articles, you might want to stay tuned to my other site for more of the same.

Finally, here are the winners of Spook Central's Halloween Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Blu-Ray Raffle:

* Kevin H., Salem MA
* Sean B., Phoenix AZ
* Steven L., Los Angeles CA
* Laura S., New Orleans, LA
* Katie M., New York, NY

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For the complete list of Spook Central's Halloween Treat posts from years past, click here. Thanks to Miss Kate for the "Halloween Treat" title banner that appears at the top of this post.

In honor of the Ghostbusters 30th anniversary, Spook Central has five sets of Ghostbusters 1 & 2 individual Blu-rays to offer as prizes to five lucky winners. Each raffle ticket costs a mere $3.40 ($3.00 goes to the raffle pot, $0.40 goes to PayPal), and to be fair, I'm limiting it to ONE TICKET PER PERSON, WITH A U.S. PAYPAL MAILING ADDRESS ONLY. (If you live outside the U.S., please don't buy a raffle ticket as you won't be eligible for the raffle. Your money will be refunded, minus the PayPal portion.)


The raffle ends on October 26, 2014, and the winners will be announced on October 31, 2014 when Spook Central presents its annual Halloween Treat.

In the past, I've done several giveaways/contests, and I almost always had to pay out of my own pocket to ship items to the winners. I don't have records, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that I paid over $100 out of pocket on postage for all of the contests combined. I can no longer afford to pay to ship out freebies to other people. I'm hoping that enough people will buy tickets so that the raffle pot will be large enough to pay for the postage on all of the prizes. That way I don't have to pay to ship out prizes, and winners will get TWO brand new Blu-rays for a mere $3.40. Each prize pack is valued at $39.98 (MSRP of $19.98 per Blu-ray).

OFFICIAL RULES
The "Spook Central Halloween Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Blu-Ray Raffle" (hereafter referred to as "the raffle") starts on 10/12/2014 and ends on 10/26/2014. The contest is open only to legal residents of the United States, who have valid PayPal accounts. Limit one ticket per person and/or PayPal account. Each ticket costs $3.40, payable only via PayPal, with $3.00 going to the raffle pot and $0.40 going to PayPal for their fee. Tickets are non-refundable. Any additional ticket purchases, and ticket purchases from non-U.S. residents, will be discarded (only these tickets will be refunded, minus the PayPal portion). If you don't win, you don't get your money back. Any money in the raffle pot left over after all postage is paid for will be considered donations to Spook Central and the Rudoff Family Relief Fund.

Winners will be chosen at random using The Hat random name-selection software. Winners will be notified via e-mail, and asked to confirm their mailing address in a timely manner. If a winner does not reply within three business days, they will forfeit the prize and it will be given to someone else via another random selection. Prizes will be mailed out once all winners confirm their mailing addresses. All information provided by entrants will not be sold, given away, or used for any other purpose than for this contest - though a winners list *may* be posted after the contest has ended.

No prize substitution or cash redemption allowed by a prize winner. If awarded, prizes will be awarded without any warranty of any kind. Odds of winning a prize depends on the total number of eligible entries received. All federal, state and local tax liabilities, if any, are the responsibility of the winners. Spook Central/Paul Rudoff shall not be responsible or liable for entries that are entered by other than human means (such as by an automated computer program or any non-human mechanism, entity, or device), in excess of the stated limit, or for entries that are late, forged, destroyed, lost, misplaced, stolen, misdirected, tampered with, incomplete, deleted, damaged, garbled, or otherwise not in compliance with the official rules, and all such entries will be disqualified.

By entering the contest, each entrant agrees: (i) to be bound by these official rules and by all applicable laws and decisions of Spook Central/Paul Rudoff which shall be binding and final; (ii) to waive all of his/her rights to bring any claim, action, or proceeding against Spook Central/Paul Rudoff in connection with the Giveaway.

Sony recently released both Ghostbusters films on Blu-ray in honor of the franchise's 30th anniversary. This new Blu-ray release marks the third for Ghostbusters and the first for Ghostbusters II. Both films were also released twice on DVD. Most of Spook Central's visitors, undoubtedly, own one of those previous home video releases, so you'll want to know how these new Blu-rays stack up to the old digital home video releases. So, let's break this down, shall we...

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Welcome to Spook Central's special Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Celebration. Today is the fourth "Shot On Site" article for the month. Today I'll be covering a Ghostbusters deleted scene location, which also happens to be the place many promotional shots and two of the montage magazine cover images were taken. It was found and ID'ed by myself. Before starting, I want it known that this article is in memory of Charles Anderson, whose unfortunate death made this ID much easier to do. I'll talk more about him at the end of the article.

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Hey, everyone! Today's my birthday. I won't say how old I am, but if you do the math, you'll figure it out soon enough. As I been salvaging the home movie videotapes that Hurricane Sandy ruined, I've been finding long-forgotten family memories. One of the tapes contained my 20th birthday celebration. It was for this birthday that I received the Making Ghostbusters book from my aunt and uncle in California. Now you, too, can watch my elation as I opened up one of the best presents I ever received in my life. This video was recorded on June 26, 1997, the day after my birthday, when the package was received. That's my mother in the background, and my sister is seen briefly in the lower left corner. My father was operating the camera, so you only hear his voice.


Okay, so I didn't freak out like Brandon and Rachel Kuzma did when they received a Nintendo 64 for Christmas, but I'd say I was still rather "orgasmic" at receiving the holy book of Ghostbusters for my birthday.

Welcome to Spook Central's special Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Celebration. Today we have a big PDF eBook update for the site.

On the Ghostbusters Books page, the following PDFs were added:
• Film Yearbook 1986 review
• Cinefantastique Jan. 1985 review
• Enterprise Incidents Aug. 1984 article
• Enterprise Incidents Sep. 1984 article
• Enterprise Incidents Oct. 1984 article
• Enterprise Incidents Nov. 1984 article
• Prevue Aug. 1984 article
• Starlog #85 article
• Starlog #86 article
• Starlog #87 article
• Starlog #88 article
• Starlog #98 article

On the Ghostbusters II Books page, the following PDFs were added:
• GB2 Poster Book
• Cinefantastique Jan. 1990 review
• Fangoria #150 article
• Starlog #140 article
• Starlog #145 article
• Starlog #148 article
• Starlog #164 article
• Starlog Platinum Vol. 2 article

On the The Real Ghostbusters Books page, the Starlog #111 article PDF was added.

There were lots of bits and bobs from various magazines that were not worthy of being made into one of the full-blown book and magazine PDFs, so I put those into the Magazine Scraps image gallery. There are a few things in here that aren't Ghostbusters related, but I thought they'd be fun to include.

Finally, because I didn't have any other place to put this on the site, here's a Bill Murray article that appeared in the December 24, 2004 edition of Life magazine - which was distributed in various newspapers across the United States. Click on the cover thumbnail to download the PDF. Thanks to Matthew Jordan for help with fixing up the page images.

GHOSTBUSTERS. 1984 "I guess I'm proudest of what we did for the world of fashion....Danny [Aykroyd] was going to write Ghostbusters for himself and John [Belushi], I'm sure. But after John died, he sent me a script that was 47 pages, and it was really funny. I was living in New York, and I remember finishing it at eleven at night. I called him the next day. The deal was put together so fast -- in about 90 minutes they had a director and a caterer."

Welcome to Spook Central's special Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Celebration. This is the third "Shot On Site" article for the month, and today we'll be examining a quick Ecto-1A shot from the "We're Back" montage in Ghostbusters II. It was found and identified by myself.

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Welcome to Spook Central's special Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Celebration. Today was a big multimedia update for the site. I added 65 still photos to the bottom of the Ghostbusters II Electronic Press Kit page. This should be more than enough to show what's on the EPK.

Pics of Dana in the courtroom before the trial were added to the Ghostbusters II Deleted Scenes page. I really thought I had these on the site already. I also updated/added some images on these Ghostbusters II deleted scenes pages: Ghost Jogger's Lap Time, Television Commercial, Possessed Ray Driving, Louis Is Proton Gun Crazy For Slimer, Louis' Cousin, Sherman Tully, and Sizing Up The Museum Situation.

On the Ghostbusters Deleted Scenes page I added a photo of Janine talking with Egon while he's working on some equipment, and I updated the second and seventh photos on the Pulling Up To Fort Detmerring deleted scene page.

Finally, I present to you the deleted ending to issue #3 of the Now Comics "Ghostbusters II" comic book adaptation, which represents the film's original ending. These four files are courtesy of the late, great Doreen Mulman who once had them on her now-defunct website, the Ghostbusters Fan Forum. According to the GBFF, these were sent to Doreen's RGB Fan Club in 1989. Doreen's friend Alex Newborn uploaded scans of his own copies to GBFans, along with a scan of the letter he received from comic writer James Van Hise. According to Mr. Van Hise, "Although my adaptation of GBII (part 3 enclosed) included the end sequence, Columbia made Now Comics cut it out at the last minute because it wasn't in the movie! Wonder where they were when we did part 2 with the Ectomobile crash scene? So although part 3 in the comic ends on page 26, the art was completely finished for the rest, which is included here in the form it was intended to be published in, although it never will be published, sad to say, so those last 4 pages will never see print." (Copies of Alex's files are also hosted at EctoContainment.)

Welcome to Spook Central's special Ghostbusters 30th Anniversary Celebration. Today is the second "Shot On Site" article for the month. This Ghostbusters II location, which was found by Carl Ross, is unique in that the identification was done not through anything seen in the film, but rather through personal recollection and visual reference to the building across the street.

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DISCLAIMER: The following article is about the official Ghostbusters Fan Club that was in operation back in the 1980s. I didn't think it needed to be said, but since I actually get e-mails about this... THE OFFICIAL GHOSTBUSTERS FAN CLUB IS NO LONGER IN OPERATION!!!!!

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