Metacritic reviews

Hilarious…The joy of Beetlejuice is its completely bizarre -- but perfectly realized -- view of the world, a la Gary Larson's "The Far Side," or "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." [1 Apr 1988]

By the time this irresistible treat is over, it has created some of the funniest moments and most inspired visual humor and design we may expect to experience at the movies all year. [30 Mar 1988]

Beetlejuice means something good: that imaginative artists can bring a fading genre back from the dead. [11 Apr 1988]

So original that it'll be years before a major filmmaker attempts another one. We're talking black-belt cult-movie status here. [30 Mar 1988]

Beetlejuice springs to life when the raucous and repulsive Betelgeuse (Keaton) rises from his moribund state to wreak havoc on fellow spooks and mortal enemies.

Only about half of the disconnected gags and oddball conceits pay off, but their gleeful delivery takes up most of the slack.

Gets off to a start that's so charming it never lives it down. The movie is all anticlimax once we realize it's going to be about gimmicks, not characters.

The screenplay is foolish and Michael Keaton overplays the title role badly, but director Tim Burton gives the comedy a heap of visual imagination. [22 Apr 1988]

Elaborate as this sounds, there really isn't much plot here, only a parade of arbitrary visual tricks to hold the film together.

It's two hours of your life wasted, time once spent that can never be regained. Don't go. Don't do it. [30 Mar 1988]