GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE Director Talks About The Origin of The Villain Garraka

The villain in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire ended up being a big disappointment for me. They set up this really cool and interesting backstory for the character, but when he finally showed up to wreak havoc, the battle kind of fizzled out. I thought it was a pretty boring standoff, which is a shame.

They bring all of these characters together to battle this thing, and then the villain stands in the garage of the firehouse and freezes everything. Nothing really climactic happens! I don’t know, that end should’ve been so much better, especially with a villain that was built up to be so much more sinister.

Anyway, the director of the film, Gil Kenan, recently talked about the origin of the villain during an interview with CB, saying:

"The genesis was that we knew that we were going to amp up the stakes and that we were moving into the Post-Gozerian era with this story. So the idea of going from the sort of warm summery fields of Somerville, Oklahoma to New York City that would in the height of its summer go through a supernatural, deep freeze was actually a really core early concept that Jason and I started to pitch before, before we ever fleshed out the rest of the story. So we kind of knew where we were heading. Garraka started to become the sort of physical embodiment of the terror that was going to have to be confronted by our heroes."

Kenan went on to reveal where the actual look and name for Garraka come from, and how the creation was split between him and co-writer and producer Jason Reitman:

"(Garraka) visually started to come together while we were writing him. I draw all the time while we're working, it's how I think sometimes. So I started to sketch out this kind of nightmarish character with long curling nails and horns that would bend down behind him, and that series of drawings kind of very literally ended up being the character that you met in the film. His name, I remember Jason just pulling the name out of the air. It was just like he turned to me and said, 'Garraka' and I was like, 'Garraka,' that's it. So that was how we came together, imagery from one side, name from the other. It's how we work, always, we're sort of always spinning stories together and it's really it's a really joyous experience of creating with my best friend."

I’ve seen Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire twice already, and the second time was rough to get though. Every single issue with the film stuck out like a sore thumb. I’m pretty bummed out about this because I freakin’ love the Ghostbusters franchise! It’s so frustrating that this movie wasn’t as great as it should’ve been.