My First Crush Was Egon Spengler

Lauren Modery
3 min readNov 24, 2021

Watching Ghostbusters: Afterlife brought back memories of my first great love — Harold Ramis.

It takes a lot for me to go to the movie theater — even outside of a pandemic — but Ghostbusters: Afterlife looked too good to miss. And boy was I right.

Not only is the film well-written, well-performed (McKenna Grace is FANTASTIC), and entertaining, it taps into strong feelings of nostalgia — particularly if your favorite Ghostbuster was Egon Spengler, played by the very talented and dearly departed Harold Ramis.

Gathering from the trailer that the film centers on Egon’s character, I had anticipated getting choked up while watching the film. And for the most part I kept my cool, that is until the last 10 minutes of the film. Then I LOST IT.

I mean, I cried like a stupid little baby.

I cried for my childhood.
I cried for all the wonderful people who have left us since the first movie premiered.
And I cried for the passage of time.

I couldn’t think or talk for 30 minutes after the film.

And this strong emotional reaction reminded me of my deep love for my very first crush.

Dr. Egon Spengler forever

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Lauren Modery

Freelance writer; film Loves Her Gun premiered @ SXSW ‘13; used to be a Hollywood assistant; rail enthusiast; check out my dumb blog, hipstercrite.com