To those who are disturbed by this remake, let it be known that no one is burning all the DVD copies of the 1984 model. If you wish, you can easily re-watch Sigourney Weaver’s possessed Dana writhing around in bed while suggestively telling Bill Murray’s Venkman, “I want you inside of me” while Murray quips back, “It sounds like you've got at least two or three people in there already.”

But here is the rub. All this misplaced misogynistic hostility that has been sliming the reputation of director’s Paul Feig’s gender-reassignment redo (co-written with Katie Dippold, his partner on “The Heat”) has stirred the girl-power advocate inside of me. But, the reality is, there is perhaps one, maybe two moments that come anywhere close to being as memorable as that 32-year-old not-quite-family-friendly joke above. And that reality leaves me in the unhappy position of having to admit that this feminized attempt could have used a makeover itself.

What complicates matters even more is that I actually found myself chuckling within the first few minutes of the film. The source of my mirth, unfortunately, was not any of the four female stars. Instead, it was Zach Woods of TV’s “Silicon Valley”—he of the perpetually startled eyes—as a tour guide at a historic New York City mansion where the first threatening specter materializes. When he claims that the 19th-century structure’s forward-thinking owner installed such innovative features as a “face bidet” and “an anti-Irish security fence,” I laughed heartily.

Alas, such genuinely humorous opportunities arrive only sporadically throughout the rest of this experiment that attempts to combine ectoplasm and estrogen into an enjoyable summer comedy elixir. Actually, the problem isn’t so much that women are strapping on those upgraded ghost-zapping proton packs this time around. After all, when you put such formidable talents as Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones together in a room, something amusing is bound to happen. But if what occurs is a running gag on how McCarthy always gets shorted on wontons in her Chinese takeout, new heights of hilarity are going to be hard to come by.