Gozer

Gozer the Gozerian is a fictional Sumerian shapeshifting god who is the major supernatural enemy in Ghostbusters.

History

After World War I, an insane surgeon named Ivo Shandor, leader of a secret apocalyptic cult, designed a ziggurat disguised as a massive apartment building in New York City (55 Central Park West) for the specific purpose of gathering psychokinetic energy (PKE) that would power a portal that would allow Gozer and its minions to enter the world and destroy it.

By 1984, the building had gathered enough energy to pull Zuul and Vinz Clortho through. The two planned to possess suitable humans to open the portal on top of the building to let Gozer through. Because of this, the PKE level in the surrounding area was a few thousand times greater than normal. As a byproduct, numerous ghosts were 'revived' and became active throughout the city as they waited to join their new master.

Background

According to various sources, the name "Gozer" is from a documented haunting that came to the attention of Dan Aykroyd, but this is unsubstantiated. She is also known as Gozer the Destructor, Volguus Zildrohar or even The Traveller. Speaking through Louis Tully, Vinz Clortho claimed that:

“ During the rectification of the Vuldronaii, the Traveler came as a large, moving Torb. Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex supplicants, they chose a new form for him - that of a giant Sloar. Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar that day, I can tell you. ”

Gozer is also coincidentally the present tense masculine Hebrew form of the verb "to cut; decree; resolve, decide; derive."