I have been a Ghosbusters vomit-bagger for almost 40 years now.

I hated at least 90% of Ivan Reitman’s 19884 original, and felt disgusted by the megaplex adoration. Some of Bill Murray‘s quips were amusing, sure, but I despised the third act with a passion — that idiotic demon dog, Sigourney Weaver‘s possession by “Gozer” and especially that huge marshmallow monster clomping around Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

A woman I was seeing at the time, a marketing exec, found it delightful. I think on some level this may have contributed to our eventual breakup. I remember taking a walk one afternoon and realizing that her Ghostbusters worship was a bridge too far.

Exactly five years later came Ghostbusters II (6.16.89), and the few aspects I found tolerable or vaguely amusing about the ’84 version had been more or less eliminated.

The public was spared any further 20th Century sequels, and for a long stretch the idea of a 21st Century Ghostbusters rehash seemed unlikely. Thank you, God.

Then came Paul Feig’s feminist version, Ghostbusters (7.15.16). The partly sexist fanboys hated it but I found it half-tolerable until the final godawful 35 minutes.

Review excerpt: “It’s formula bullshit, of course — what else could it be? — but if you can lower your standards and just sit back and take it, it’s 80 minutes of silly ‘fun’ — fun defined as nodding submission to a super-budget presentation of a franchise concept that’s moderately amusing here and there and doesn’t piss you off. And then, with 35 minutes to go, Ghostbusters becomes a massive CGI show to end all massive CGI shows — Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel finale meets the Independence Day sequel meets the Pillsbury doughboy monster meets the end of the world.”

And that was it. I got off the boat and have never even flirted with the idea of getting back on. And so I blew off Jason Reitman‘s Ghostbusters: Afterlife (’21), and there’s no way in hell I’ll be watching Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire> (opening tonight).