Having watched the film dozens of times (for studying purposes), it becomes clear that one should not expect a $144M budget type of movie. Instead, for $3,000, all the heart and fun that stretched dollars can afford are put on screen.
The film sure has its cheesy moments and it has to be expected instead of hoping for a miracle. And in some ways, this fan film is sort of a miracle in itself. You have quirky characters, a clichéd villain, the reporter (who reminded me a lot of TMNT's April O'Neil for some reason) and a few great action scenes for the tight budget they had.
The camera work is interesting and is much more determined to shoot a cool looking scene than most fan films I've seen lying around. Not that they're any bad, but it's nice to dissect them and try and see where there are a few problems, where scenes could be trimmed, etc.
This film could have used a bit of trimming or a few extra takes instead of keeping a scene where the same word can be heard two or three times. Not to be picky, it just creates a redundancy that slowly can cripple the narrative when repeated too many times. Although I'm sure these were most unintentional and they do not hinder my fun of watching it.
Knowing that this is a low budget production, I was pleasantly surprised to see the amount of accuracy, the fun, the efforts to try and tell an original story, to have a few references to the original Ghostbusters while also covering its own grounds. The film does mention some of the original characters, but that's where the movie gets some of its best fun: talking about other fictional characters, thus making them seem more real, as well as the Ghostbusters name and the overall story at the same time.
It's not a Stanley Kubrick film, and it's not a Rolland Emmerich film either. It's a Hank Braxtan film. The man wrote and directed it and before that, he did the same with "Freddy VS. Ghostbusters", another fun short film featuring some of the characters seen in "Return".
For doing all this by himself, and for the fun results I still enjoy to this day, I'd say he's more than earned my eternal respect.
