YOU’D have thought Sony would have jumped on the Halloween train with the release of its latest attempt to reboot the Ghostbusters franchise. Rather than a mid-November wasteland, that is. And what a pity. Ghostbusters: Afterlife serves not as a sequel to 2016’s all female Ghostbusters - a confounding flop at the box office and much better than many give it credit for - but a new revival all together.

A third Ghostbusters was first touted in the 90s. Dan Aykroyd - the original film’s Ray Stantz - even wrote the script. It was to be called ‘Hellbent’ and would have seen our heroes transported to an alternative universe to meet the Devil himself. Bill Murray passed on the project and the studio followed suit.

It would take two decades for serious talks to resume, with Ivan Reitman slated to direct a script by Aykroyd and Etan Cohen. Bill Murray, once again, declined but it was the death of Harold Ramis, in 2014, that stalled this one.

Then came Paul Feig’s reboot and a outcry of - almost entirely male - dismay. How could a woman possibly pull off a boiler suit and proton blaster? Hmm. Now follows Afterlife, a safer and slightly less zany effort, fuelled unapologetically by nostalgia.

Unlike its New York predecessors, Afterlife is set in the American West.

Carrie Coon plays Callie Spengler, daughter of the late Dr. Egon Spengler (Ramis), who is forced to uproot her family to Oklahoma when they are evicted from their home.

Callie, along with kids Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) and Trevor (Finn Wolfhard), wind up in Summerville, where a series of unexplained earthquakes suggest that all may not be as it seems.

It’s not long before Phoebe and Trevor uncover the truth about their grandfather’s history as a Ghostbuster and only a hop, skip and a jump after they do that things take a turn for the spooky.

It’s all good fun and the gags come thick and fast. There’s nothing new here but, as Melissa McCarthy and company learnt for themselves, that seems to be what the fans want.

Paul Rudd proves good value in his role as the kids’ teacher, while cameos and Easter Eggs drop left, right and centre.

Even Murray shows up. The approach to adventure here might be unadventurous but there’s nothing to be afraid of in that.