Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire director Gil Kenan breaks down Garraka, the film’s new villain. Picking up some time after the end of 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the latest sequel in the beloved horror comedy franchise takes the action back to New York City. The movie features new and old team members alike uniting to take down the evil specter, Garraka, who has brought the city to its knees with a phenomenon known as the “Death Chill.”
In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Kenan explains Garraka’s origins in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and how the character represents a change in direction following the return of Gozer in the 2021 sequel. Check out his comment below:
“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 Summerville, 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.
“(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.”
More to come…
