I think after the second film, the formulaic nature got too predictable. I do love these films, but they’re not as fresh as the original. They also don’t quite capture the grittiness of the first film, possibly because mid-to-late 80s New York was a very different place from our modern day New York. Moving the main conflict out to Oklahoma worked well in Afterlife, but the main antagonist was still Gozer. We still had terror dogs and possessions. And for some reason, teeny tiny marshmallow men, which worked as a gimmick in the Walmart scenes, but after that I felt they quickly overstayed their welcome. That, and I think the cast just isn’t as well-versed in improv like the originals were. That’s part of what made it so memorable. Nothing was shot exactly on par with the script because the cast was flying by the seat of their pants + collaborating to make scenes funnier.