Ghostbusters (1984)
In 6000 BC, Zuul was worshipped as a demigoddess by the Sumerians, Mesopotamians, and Hittites as a servant of Gozer, the shape-shifting god of destruction. By 1984, her stone likeness stood on the rooftop of the Shandor Building in Manhattan, part of the architect Ivo Shandor's psychokinetic energy-channeling complex designed to facilitate Gozer's return.
Dana Barrett first encountered Zuul when she opened her refrigerator to find it had become a portal revealing Gozer's temple. Vinz Clortho appeared in the opening and called out Zuul's name before Dana slammed the door and fled. Later, during an intense thunderstorm, Zuul manifested on the Shandor Building rooftop by breaking out of her Gothic stone statue. She then pursued Dana to her apartment, where demonic claws pinned Dana to her chair and telekinetic activity dragged the chair to the kitchen. Zuul possessed Dana there, trapping her.
In possession of Dana's body, Zuul adopted the identity of the Gatekeeper and sought out Vinz Clortho, who had likewise possessed Dana's neighbor Louis Tully. When Peter Venkman arrived for his date with Dana, Zuul initially mistook him for the Keymaster and aggressively attempted to seduce him. Becoming increasingly frustrated at Peter's refusals, she levitated several feet above her bed while roaring in a demonic voice and declaring, "There is no Dana, only Zuul!" Peter sedated her with a large dose of Thorazine before leaving.
When Walter Peck shut down the Ghostbusters' Containment Unit, releasing stored ghosts, Zuul awoke to the surge of supernatural energy. She moved to her living room window with a sinister grin to watch the ghosts escape, then roared and blew out the apartment wall, giving Vinz Clortho a way to locate her from the street below. The two possessed humans reunited, kissed, and walked together up a hidden staircase revealed behind where Dana's kitchen door had stood, leading to the building rooftop.
On the rooftop, Zuul and Vinz took their places on opposing pedestals and channeled supernatural lightning toward the large temple doors, opening them. As the doors opened, they were both struck by bolts of lightning that transformed them from their human host forms back into their native Terror Dog shapes. The two beasts roared at the arriving Ghostbusters and took their positions guarding Gozer's entrance. When the Ghostbusters crossed the streams to defeat Gozer, the full protonic reversal also petrified Zuul and Vinz, leaving Dana Barrett and Louis Tully trapped inside the stone husks. The Ghostbusters dug them out; both survived with no recollection of the events during their possession.
One distinguishing physical detail: Zuul has shorter horns than her counterpart, Vinz Clortho.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife
Zuul reappears in Ghostbusters: Afterlife (2021), beginning with events set in summer 2021. When Egon Spengler trapped Vinz Clortho near the Shandor Mining Company property in Summerville, Oklahoma, and attempted to escape, Zuul took an invisible form and gave chase. She rammed the side of his truck, flipping it into a barley field. At the farmhouse, Egon tried to capture Zuul using a capacitor array on the porch, but the power failed repeatedly. Zuul manifested in a smoke-like Sentinel form that crept into the study and attacked him from the armchair, multiple demonic arms bursting through the chair. Egon drove her off by activating the taser function on his PKE Meter. Zuul departed as a pink PKE energy wisp.
Two days after Phoebe Spengler, Podcast, and Gary Grooberson accidentally released Vinz Clortho from Egon's trap, Zuul selected Callie Spengler as her next host. Possessing Callie in Egon's underground laboratory, Zuul returned to the farmhouse study. Phoebe found who she thought was her mother and called out to her; Zuul replied, "There is no Mom, only Zuul." When the PKE Meter in the room shifted into taser mode, Zuul recognized it and hid behind the armchair.
Sensing the psychokinetic disturbance as Vinz Clortho disabled the containment contraption in the mine's Temple of Gozer, Zuul leaped through the window and ran across the fields. She and Vinz reunited at the mining property. Zuul materialized a golden dress for Callie's body to replace her clothing, and the two consummated the ritual before entering the mine and transforming into their Terror Dog forms in the temple.
During the final confrontation, Podcast used a Remote Trap Vehicle to trap Zuul from beneath her pedestal, freeing Callie and fragmenting Gozer's power. Gozer later broke the trap open and freed Zuul, who then possessed Lucky Domingo and transformed into Terror Dog form again, allowing Gozer to reform. After Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore arrived, the Ghostbusters and Phoebe caught Gozer in a Proton Stream while Trevor Spengler powered the Trap Field. Callie triggered the traps, capturing every entity on the property, including Zuul. Lucky was freed from the Terror Dog husk by Trevor.
IDW Comics
In the IDW Comics continuity, Zuul and Vinz Clortho were present on Cybertron alongside Gozer approximately 1,000 years ago, as depicted in the Transformers/Ghostbusters: Ghosts of Cybertron crossover. When the Autobots departed the planet, the Decepticons could not pursue because of Gozer, Zuul, and Vinz Clortho's presence. Later, Zuul appeared at Gozer's side during telepathic contact with Ray Stantz during the Tiamat incident. When the prime IDW Ghostbusters team learned about Gozer from the original team after a dimensional overlap caused by an accident with the Interspatial Teleportation Unit, Patty Tolan recognized the name Zuul and asked whether her team would one day face Gozer; Kylie Griffin speculated it would only manifest as an echo in their dimension.
Personality
Zuul is more even-tempered and calculating than Vinz Clortho. She is capable of secretive approach, having successfully ambushed both Dana Barrett and Callie Spengler before possessing them. When inhabiting a human host, she speaks with an eloquent and formal speech pattern. She reacts with menace when threatened, as seen in her confrontation with Peter Venkman. She is fiercely protective of Vinz Clortho, demonstrated most clearly by her invisible pursuit of Egon Spengler in his final hours.
Powers
Zuul can possess human hosts and take on multiple physical forms: her corporeal Terror Dog body, an invisible pursuit form, an ethereal Sentinel mist form, and a PKE energy wisp. She can materialize demonic arms through physical objects, materialize clothing for her host, and move objects telekinetically. In conjunction with Vinz Clortho, she can open the interdimensional portal that allows Gozer entry into the physical plane. Her ghost card in Ghostbusters: The Board Game classifies her as Class 6; the IDW Comics and Insight Editions classify her as Class 7; Egon Spengler's Journal (the Hasbro Haslab Plasma Series Spengler's Proton Pack supplement) classifies her as a Class 6 Fully Corporeal Possessor.
Casting and design
Sigourney Weaver portrayed Dana Barrett as Zuul's host in Ghostbusters (1984). Director Ivan Reitman provided all of Zuul's demonic vocalizations, including the "There is no Dana" roar and the snarls during the levitation scene. Reitman performed the same character voice work for Slimer. The Terror Dog puppeteers were Terri Hardin and Harrison Ray.
Several distinctive practical effects were used for Zuul's sequences. The stone statue breakout was created using breakaway plaster applied to the prop weeks before filming. By the time the shot was scheduled on a Friday, the plaster had hardened and would not break, and the mechanical cable system had failed. Effects supervisor Stuart Ziff and his team worked through the entire weekend to repair the mechanism in time for Monday filming. The demonic arms that seized Dana were worn as glove appliances by three puppeteers positioned beneath her armchair or out of camera range; the hairy arm was constructed using yak hair punched in using a filed-down sewing needle that resembled a harpoon with a wooden dowel handle. The bulging kitchen door effect was executed by stretching thick latex rubber over a special door frame backed by irregularly-shaped foam pieces. For the single brief shot of Zuul in Dana's kitchen, the articulated Terror Dog prop was only completed near the very end of production, which required the demolished set to be entirely rebuilt by art director John DeCuir and his crew for that one shot.
In Dan Aykroyd's early script drafts, "Zuul" was a generic term for other-dimensional creatures. The original premise featured a Zuul that had strayed out of its rightful time and place and was being held captive by the Ghostbusters' employer, himself described as a transdimensional being. The Zuul was Gozer's favored pet, and Gozer would stop at nothing to recover it. When that concept was revised in subsequent drafts, Zuul became the given name for the female Terror Dog, with Vinz Clortho as her Keymaster companion.
For Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the billowing smoke of Zuul's Sentinel form was achieved as a practical effect using dry ice. The arm attack on Egon in the farmhouse armchair intentionally mirrors the original film's chair sequence. Special Make-Up and Live Action Creature Effects Designer Arjen Tuiten puppeteered one of the attacking arms; his shop built the arm props. More footage of the attack was filmed than what appears in the theatrical cut.
In May 2017, paleontologists named a newly discovered herbivorous ankylosaurine dinosaur Zuul crurivastator after the character.
The Terror Dog form of Zuul has attracted attention from high-end collectible makers. Star Ace released a 1/8 scale soft vinyl statue of Zuul in Terror Dog form in 2024 in normal (SA8046) and deluxe (SA8047) editions. The figure measures 12.5 cm tall and 20 cm in length, with a rotating head and front feet. The deluxe edition adds a display base with the Ghostbusters logo and LED light-up eyes. Twin packs pairing Zuul with Slimer (in both normal and deluxe configurations) were also offered. In early 2025, Star Ace followed with the Zuul 2.0 Burning Edition (SA8061/SA8062), depicting the character with a reddish, cracked-stone glowing appearance.
