User reviews

In the idyllic small town of Winter River, Connecticut, Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) are a happily married couple who are content to fix up their house while on vacation from working the local hardware store. However, on a routine drive the Maitlands inadvertently plunge their car into a river trying to avoid hitting a dog in the road. Upon their return home the Maitlands start noticing odd things such as not remembering how they returned home and eventually discover with their inexplicably acquired book The Handbook for the Recently Deceased that they died in the river and are now ghosts bound to the property. A bad situation is rendered worse when their home is sold to the yuppie Deetz family consisting of stressed architect Charles (Jeffrey Jones) who hopes for peace and quiet, Charles' tacky socialite would-be artist second wife Delia (Catherine O'Hara), and Charles' gothic death obsessed daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder). As the Maitlands try to scare the Deetz' out of their home to no avail Lydia begins seeing glimpses of them, however a fast talking lecherous con-man named Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) offers his services as a "bio-exorcist" to the Maitlands to get rid of the Deetzes, but Beetlejuice may be even worse than they are.

Following the success of Tim Burton's debut film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Burton became bankable enough for Warner Bros. That he became attached to the long stalled in development Batman. While Batman continued its turgid development Warner Bros. Offered Burton a number of scripts many of which he hated including the infamous Hot to Trot. Eventually Burton was given the script to Beetlejuice and decided it would be his next project. The script, originally written with a much darker and less comic edge was reworked by written Warren Skaaren and gave us the final darkly comic toned end result. The film received positive screenings from test audiences and upon release the film became a sleeper hit opening at #1 at the box office and staying there for four consecutive weeks ultimately making $74 million in North America alone against its $15 million budget which gave Warner Bros. The confidence to formally greenlight Batman which would only make Burton and even bigger name than he already was. Beetlejuice has become one of Burton's most iconic films as its undeniably the first film where Burton's signature style is fully on display (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure had glimpses, but it wasn't quite the Burton we all know). Visually creative, darkly funny, and incredibly quotable, Beetlejuice has become a classic for a good reason.

At its core, the movie is a culture clash of two exaggerate types with the Maitlands represent humble, nice, down to earth people while the Deetzes represent the garish tackiness of obnoxious urbanites who revel in excess and inanity and even when they come to small towns to "get away from it all" their thoughts turn to "how do we make this more like where we came from?". Burton loves larger than life characters and he does well with the over the top likable Maitlands and the over the top tacky Deetzes but we also get a more grounded core in Winona Ryder's Lydia who despite being positioned as a gothic outsider, is also ironically the most normal and down to Earth one of the group and serves as our proxy through which we experience the supernatural shenanigans. Baldwin and Davis are both incredibly likable and have fantastic chemistry as Adam and Barbara, and Catherine O'Hara is delightfully over the top as she voices her disgust with the Maitlands home and mutilates it along with her buffoonish and foppish interior designer Otho (Glenn Shadix) who's very much a jack of all trades and a joke at all of them. But of course, we can't talk about Beetlejuice without discussing the titular character and he steals every scene he's in thanks to the manic energy brought by Keaton to the role. Very much a Bugs Bunny by way of the Cryptkeeper, Beetlejuice is repulsively funny as he's essentially this fast-talking conman with vulgar appetites and lecherous leanings that he doesn't even try to hide that culminates in a satisfying climax where everything is fully unleashed.

Beetlejuice is an inverted take on Ghostbusters with the crazy surreal imagery that would become part and parcel to many a Tim Burton production. With sharp clever writing, beautifully ugly visuals, and memorable lines and characters it's no wonder why Beetlejuice's legacy has endured as long as it has.

This is a movie not anyone can enjoy, but that's because it speaks a different language. It breaks its own rules just to have fun. Every actor is phenomenal, Michael Keaton as beetlejuice makes the best of the little time he has on-screen, with not just perfect timing but also great energy. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis also do a great job as a likable couple they also act as this film straight man and woman, since everyone else is pretty entertaining. Winona Ryder's career really kicked off after this movie because of her great subtle and dramatic performance. The jokes and effects are disturbing buy in the end you can't help but laugh.

In this film, we will visit the afterlife through the experience of a newly deceased couple who, to their own despair, sees the home of their dreams invaded by a new family. Thus, to evict them and regain possession of their home, they decide to scare and haunt the newcomers, which can be challenging for a rookie ghost. To do this, they have the help of experienced ghosts and two unusual allies: the daughter of the new house owners and another ghost, deeply unorthodox and expert in the art of scaring the living.

The film is a classic comedy of black humor, which plays with death and life in the beyond, just as it makes a great mockery to the pseudo-intellectuals of American society. The movie is very funny. I confess I had never seen or heard of him until I found him, by chance. Directed by Tim Burton, there are a lot of elements that we associate, almost instinctively, with this director: an unusual plot with offbeat themes, a comedy difficult to please everyone, out of the box sets and costumes and a refined, fun and contagious soundtrack.

The cast did a great job. Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin have done well in the role of the ghost couple. They interact very well with each other and have created a positive and credible romantic chemistry. Besides, they're funny. Michael Keaton has the most difficult and original character here: the spiritual de-worzler Betelgeuse (Beetle Juice), an irreverent, talkative and daring ghost who loves to scare humans and promises to be truly difficult to control when he's released. Winona Ryder, once a regular in Burton's films (remember "Scissorhands"), is quite good at playing the rebellious daughter of the new owners of the house, which, for a reason the film never explains, has the ability to see and speak with them, as if she were a medium.

Overall, this movie was a pleasant surprise. Very funny, contagious and cheerful, it will surely drive anyone to laughing laughter.

Up until last week, I had only seen this movie two or three times ever. I hated it. I thought it was plotless, scary, god-mocking, and dumb during my childhood. I rewatched it this week though. I can now say that this is one of my favorite films. I understand it now, and I love it. I love the performances, Harry Belafonte's music, the location it was shot at, Tim Burton's directing, the special effects, the music, and the characters. I would recommend this film to everyone. It gets a 9/10 and it is in my top 40 films ever now.

About the film: When a young couple, Adam and Barbara Maitland, pass away in a car crash, a new family, The Deetzes, move into their home. The Maitlands have become ghosts and they want the Deetz family gone because they cannot leave their home. They call upon a crazy bio-exorcist named Beetlejuice. He makes everything worse for them.

BEETLE JUICE is one of the funniest and most odd "family" films ever to have been made. There are pretty awesome special effects at work (sand worms, Beetle Snake, and a scene where Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin compete to see who can make a scarier face), tons of make-up, some legitimately eerie moments, and a hilarious performance by Keaton as the troublesome everyman ghost, Beetle Juice.

Classic Tim Burton combining humor and scares, the morbid and the silly, and the bizarre visual flair we've all come to know and love. Danny Elfman, as usual, makes the film sound just right, and Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song" is used perfectly. Twice.

There's some blood and some creepy stuff going around: plenty of dead bodies(mostly doing and saying funny stuff) with all sorts of ailments, constant talk of the afterlife, some risqué jokes that will most likely go over the brow of your ten year old, and one of the best usages of the "F" word in cinema history.

Everything about the film is exceptional, and if you like your horror with some humor, look no further.

Review: 'Beetlejuice' is an American comedy-horror film directed by Tim Burton. These types of movie are what I wish Tim Burton would have stuck to and wish he did more of. This movie hit right home with me with the creepy Halloween feel, but also being a comedy that you could watch with the family. Yes, it has some moments of coarse language and some overly creepy scenes, but overall, I would say it's a holiday classic for the family to enjoy. The plot revolves around a recently deceased young couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) who become ghosts haunting their former home, and an obnoxious, devious poltergeist named Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) from the Netherworld who tries to scare away the new inhabitants (Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones, and Winona Ryder) permanently. The acting may take some getting used to when watching a Tim Burton movie like this. It's well done in the case that the actors don't take you out of the movie and play all of there characters very well. But it's done in a way that is structure to the story that Tim Burton specifically wants to tell and it's original to its stories. The acting in this movie wasn't as play-like as some others are, but it sill didn't feel like I was watching a typical movie. I'm not trying to make this out to be a bad thing at all, I love the way I feel when watching these movies, it makes it feel more personal that the director wants to be different and have his characters stand out. My personal favorite in the film has to be Michael Keaton's portrayal of Betelgeuse, which I suppose is a good thing considering the name of the film. The way he can come off to be a complete dick, but also being super charismatic when trying to get what he wants to fantastic. Also, not to give anything away, but there is a wedding scene at the end of the movie and is amazing. One thing that could have been turned into a negative and made this movie out to be called dated it the fact that they use stop motion when trying to do CGI, but I love it. Not only was it because of the age of this film, but it's Tim Burton M.O. All it did was turn a Tim Burton movie and make it feel more like his. Overall, this is a Halloween movie that is on my list to watch every year. I think anyone can enjoy this movie for what it really is. 4.5/5

Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) are a young happy couple in lovely house. They die in a car accident and are left stranded to haunt their home. The annoying advant garde Deetzs (Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O'Hara, Winona Ryder) move in, and the Maitlands are helpless to scare them off. Finally they get a specialist Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) to excise the living from their house.

Tim Burton is a complete original, and this is the first tastes of his quirky visual sense. It's too obvious to say this is an original vision. Consider that it is so original that nobody really has done anything similar since other than maybe Burton himself.

The great thing is that the story works as well. It's funny. It's cute. It's heart warming. I love the characters, and the actors are all great in their performances. Of course Michael Keaton goes crazy in this one. But Catherine O'Hara is also hilarious, and Winona Ryder is absolutely winning in this.

Hyperbolic as it may sound, there has never quite been another film like Beetlejuice. Vomited from the maniacal mind of Tim Burton, before his name became tantamount to an adjective, the film is such a flurry of paradoxes that it really shouldn't work. But work it does, not so much bending genres as warping and distorting them like the monstrous pantomime faces scrunched by its ghostly protagonists – a ghoulishly zany live action cartoon filled with wonderful weirdness, and an unequivocal 80s classic.

Only Burton could transmogrify the horror of life after death into a rambunctiously mischievous fairy tale, but the snarkily cheerful Leave it to Beaver New England introduction proves a perfect setup to the ensuing punchline of the afterlife. Naturally, in the hands of dear Tim, the true horror of death lies not in the exquisitely realized, gruesomely surreal Dune-like wasteland of horrific stop motion leviathans, but in purgatory ultimately functioning as a garish, never-ending bureaucratic waiting room, with drawling receptionists thumbing copies of pedantic instruction manuals. The horror… the horror!

Indeed, for all its zaniness and Tex Avery-style slapstick, Beetlejuice is a film brimming with surprising heart and cleverness. Burton has always been at his pitch-black, satirical best ripping apart ideologies of 'normal life', and he has a ball equally taking jabs at our goodhearted ghostly protagonists (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, both charmingly flustered), who are tickled pink by the prospect of a 'staycation' cooped up refurbishing their home, or the house's posthumous inhabitants (the deliciously demented Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O'Hara), who tastelessly claw at postmodern décor or oafishly Machiavellian capitalism, goaded on by their preening design consultant Otho (the note-perfect Glen Shadix). By contrast, it's pretty easy to sympathize with their goth daughter (Winona Ryder at her surly, adorable best), who cheerfully pens suicide notes beginning with "I am *utterly* alone" before it was cool.

This all goes without mentioning the film's star attraction: Michael Keaton, as the titular sh*t- disturbing Bio-Exorcist. Keaton's career-defining performance is truly on another level of comedic genius, as he roars through the film like a Tasmanian devil Rumplestiltskin, riffing, swearing, crotch-honking, and guzzling scenery like the demonic snake he eventually transforms into. It's a tantamount to Keaton's wacky, manic charisma that he's barely in his own movie, and yet provides one of the most unforgettable filmic characters of all time from essentially an extended cameo.

And yet, the film's most bizarrely impressive accolade is, in spite of this cauldron of seething, seemingly antithetical weirdness, Burton has managed to stir up a strangely, unprecedentedly feel-good film. Somehow, in its mad tornado of satire, gorgeously oddball visuals, and adventurously eccentric performances, seasoned with Danny Elfman at his infectiously bouncy best, and sprinkled with a couple of Harry Belafonte Calypso dance numbers for good measure (naturally…), Burton's Gothic ode to the afterlife couldn't surge with more life and vibrancy. Beautifully grotesque and morbidly heartfelt, for audiences familiar or inexperienced, it's unquestionably worth reciting the name three times, and uncorking the spectacular insanity of… Beetlejuice.

(It's show time!)

-9.5/10

Beetlejuice is a Full-length black comedy film produced in 1988. The script, the direction and the overall style of the film is done by Tim Berton. The premise of the film isn't anything new - a haunted house. However, the perspective is different - we root for the ghosts and hope they succeed. The ghosts of previous house owners are played by Alec Boldwin and Geena Davis as Adam and Barbara Maitland. Those characters are written to be "normal". They are not self-righteous or mean-spirited, those two are average everyday people who are tossed in an unfamiliar world. Adam and Barbara, in fact, even struggle to scare the only inhabitant of the house that sees them - Lydia Deetz played by Winona Ryder. Delia and Charles Deetz are stepmother and father of Lydia that are played by Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones respectively. Those two are not horrible people in any way, but they are neglectful of their daughter. The concluding character of the main cast is the title character Beetlejuice, played masterfully by star actor Michael Keaton. Beetlejuice is a ghost, hired by Adam and Barbara to scare off the Deetz. Whenever Beetlejuice is on screen, he outshines everyone else. This character showcases everything that is great about this film: clever black humor, captivating acting and astonishing practical effects. He looks unpleasant, like a corpse, freshly dug from a grave. The practical effects that are used not only are memorable and unique due to Tim Berton's vision but also are cleverly used for jokes and atmosphere. However, some digital effects are clearly outdated, but not in a way of ruining the picture- it caches the eye, but you promptly forget about it in a minute or two. All of this crafts a unforgettable experience that is definitely worth seeing.

Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelge... dare I say it? Director Tim Burton would follow-up his directorial oddball debut ("PEE WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE") with another ambitious comedy, this time something very zany, grotesque and surreal in the shape of a riotous supernatural dark spoof. As a kid I grew up watching this film, hey, I even liked the cartoon series. So re-watching it again was a sheer delight. Something I would never tire of.

Burton would bring his signature visual gothic flair and live-action cartoon mannerisms to enliven the shallow, dressed up lifestyles in "BEETLEJUICE", but what really makes the feature is the very loose performance of Michael Keaton as Betelgeuse. Keaton is outstanding in bringing this outrageously rotten character to life, from being menacing, charming the ladies, or simply exorcising a wise-crack. He's truly a head-spin. While he provides a huge impact, the Beetlejuice character doesn't really get a whole lot of screen time, despite his importance to the plot's progression. It's measured in bursts, as his character is virtually a punch-line with legs. But with that in mind, I think it works because Burton never overplays his hand, which makes Keaton's conman persona effective than say overbearing. I don't know if Burton would do the same thing these days.

Anyway the narrative was always about Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin's recently deceased young rural couple adapting to the afterlife, while at the same time doing their best to frighten the house's new city-folk occupants that have ideas of changing their new home to meet their own trendy needs. So in a last ditch effort to scare them off they seek help from a freelance bio-exorcist ghost known as Betelgeuse. The compulsive plotting won't surprise (even though Burton throws up an interesting view of the afterlife), but what stands out is the wonderful set-pieces (how can you not grove along to the dinner party sequence as The Banana Boat Song plays), eccentric practical effects (loved the clay-animation), inspired pastel set-designs and wrapping it all together is Danny Elfman's enchantingly whimsical music score. One colorful dimension after another, but even with its comic flourishes it still demonstrates a nasty wickedness.

Add to that an amusing cast, peppered with character actors and zesty interplays. Davis and Baldwin were likably good. Jeffery Jones is enjoyably clueless and Catherine O'Hara makes a great ice queen. Winona Ryder is fittingly deadpan as the very aware gothic teenage daughter and Glen Shadix entertains as the family's psychic friend. Also showing up in a memorable part is Silva Sidney as an afterlife caseworker.

"BEETLEJUICE" is a decorative haunted house fun ride and one of Burton's best.

Beetle Juice... Beetle Juice... Do you have the guts to say it three times? Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis) are a newly wed couple but unfortunately an accident takes their lives. Their house is sold and Adam and Barbara are trying to scare the new owners away. They are unsuccessful. They seek help from exorcist, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) who is specialized in people. However Beetlejuice has his own plans...

The world of Tim Burton is fantastic, colorful and full with extraordinary creatures. The main couples visit in a office in afterlife is great fun. Michael Keaton is having his own jubilation in the role of Beetlejuice. Once Keaton has had a chance to be a little bit gross and pervert. Winona Ryder is good in her role as dark and Gothic Lydia. Again Burton used his regular stars. The careers of Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin would ignite big a couple of years later.

"Beetle Juice" is vivid, colorful, funny and represents something different in the comedy scene.

Tim Burton's first movie that was focused on Pee Wee Herman's nonsenses was a rather bizarre way for Burton to begin as filmmaker. But his second feature film that has the performances of Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton lets his peculiar style out. It is with Beetlejuice that Tim Burton makes his first great jump and offers us a story about death from a rather humorous perspective. Although the plot and script are something simple or superficial, that is quite compensated with the humor that the film offers and also by its characters. The Maitland are a dead couple with enough personality, Lydia is an eccentric girl who can have a lot of love thanks to Ryder's performance, Lydia's family are peculiar characters that give a lot of flavor to the comedy of the film and Beetlejuice is the best character for his scandalous and cartonish sense of humor. Michael Keaton lets all his charisma out with his memorable character. Nor is it easy to forget the scenes of the beyond where we see quite cartoonized people according to the way they died. Makeup and special effects are an admirable artistic work. The scenes of the sand worm seem inspired by avant -garde art. The most memorable of the film is undoubtedly the Deetz dinner scene dancing the "Day-o" song. Beetlejuice is indisputably the great beginning of Tim Burton in the cinema after his short films Vincent and Frankenweenie and that makes it one of his best films. My final rating for this film is 9/10.

Ah, man... what a classic this one is. I think this was my first time seeing it in about fifteen years. Glad to see it's aged as well as I remember it.

I loved this film so much as a teen back in the VHS days... i remember fondly recording my own copy (illegally, via two VHS recorders) from a rental and creating my own personalised tape covers with poster art and pics found from magazines and the like... i will definitely be sitting my children down to watch this when i have them... the only films i can recall loving so much back in those days was the original Star Wars trilogy... and it still holds up today as i just finished watching it again for the first time in 20+ years and it still holds up, special effects included... Keaton was born for this role and the rest of the cast are simply brilliant... i could ever remember just about all of Beetlejuice's lines... such a special film... dont miss out... they certainly dont make them like this anymore, maybe that is my 42 year old self speaking, but i will honestly always keep a special pocket in my heart for this triumph...

Tim Burton is a man to be commended for his imagination, and Beetlejuice, his second "mainstream" theatrical film, is pure undiluted Burton. All the imagination comes out in this wonderful film. It's a black comedy, although not too dark to be called "bleak." In a way, it's actually very cartoonish, thanks to Burton's brilliant direction that leads to many surreal scenes. Beetlejuice himself is a marker of insanity, his contrasts to the main characters are visible from a mile away. While Beetlejuice is a filthy, loudmouthed, perverted, and ultimately quite twisted, the Maitland's are calm and down to Earth, acting much like they would had they never even died. Each character in this film has their own unique quirk, even the "extras" that appear in the afterlife. Many nameless characters are memorable just by their looks.

With all of Burton's madness running amok, it's hard not to laugh or delight over the exquisite detail put into the films finer work. While the special effects may not "wow," the stop motion is great and represents Burton's style in a very refined way, and the makeup is still impressive years later, especially the scene where Adam and Barbara are briefly resurrected. No wonder it won an Oscar for it.

The biggest problem I have with Beetlejuice is that I felt if they had added a little more time on, some ideas hinted at could be realized in a better way. There are many ideas that are called attention to, but ultimately ignoured. Even the malevolent sandworms and their nameless homeland are mentioned and shown, but their purpose or origin are never explained. Beetlejuice himself raises some questions as well, where he's from, how he got into the Maitland's house, and there are some plot holes considering how to resurrect him; by saying his name Three Times, yet they never explain why *he* can't say his name, and if saying it three times resurrects him or gives him power, why does saying it again banish him? It deserves a little more explanation.

Despite that, Beetlejuice is a very fun watch, and if you haven't seen it even 21 years after it's release, go out and find a copy right now!

The Maitlands and The Dietzes: two families who have nothing in common except the house they both live in. So what's the twist? Well, actually...the Dietzes are a family you'd probably WANT to see dead. The Maitlands? They already are.

Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) and her husband, Adam (Alec Baldwin), have just moved into a sweet little country house, when the unthinkable happens...thanks to a freak car accident, the whole line about "till Death do us part" has actually taken on a whole new meaning for them. But they've been parted from life, not from each other. And if you're thinking that death is all that different from the life they just left behind, think again. The Afterlife can be just as fraught with complications and peril, not the least of which finds the poor couple stranded in an 'alternative universe'-version of their house.

Enter the Dietzes. Pretentious, social-status fixated richies Charles (Jeffrey Jones) and Delia (Catherine O'Hara) and their Goth-obsessed daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder), who proceed to turn the Maitlands' quaint little cottage into an avant-garde nightmare that only Hieronymus Bosch - or Salvador Dali - could love.

What are two frustrated, spatially-stranded spooks to do? There's actually a sort of "Health and Haunted Services" system in the Great Beyond that provides assistance in the form of caseworkers (who are about as helpful in death as they are in life), and Adam and Barbara's "help" comes in the form of the cynical and cancerous Juno, (the great Sylvia Sidney), who goes completely by the book...but does tip the deceased darlings off to one dangerously unpredictable possibility for a resolution of their problem.

His name, as you know by now, is Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) - or as more commonly known - "Beetlejuice." He's a caseworker turned "independent contractor", which means he's bad news for the Maitlands, worse news for the Dietzes, and the best thing to happen to horror-comedies since three guys named Venkman, Spengler and Stanz. Say his name three times, and let the mirthful mayhem begin!

Audiences couldn't get enough of Tim Burton's uniquely twisted perspective on the world after his first major movie, PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE exploded onto movie screens, and no one knew what to expect for his follow-up. Good thing, too, because there was no way to anticipate or explain this screwy and satisfying story of ghosts being haunted by a living family more scary than they are, and the outrageous entity out to fleece them both for his own purposes, (not the least of which is to get a little cuddle time in with the languishingly lovely Lydia.)

How a literal army of writers managed to put together a script this good is beyond me, but after multiple viewings, this is still Number One for the title of Funniest Frightfest around.

Burton was laying the groundwork for his revolving company of players with BEETLEJUICE as well. Besides Jeffrey Jones as the nerd-alert of a husband, there's Glenn Shadix as the fey Otho, Delia's co-designer/co-conspirator in making over the Maitlands' house and the "exorcism" that follows, and Ryder, of course, in her breakout role which would be followed by her turn in HEATHERS, guaranteeing her status as the Eighties' "It " girl.

And besides the trademark hallucinogenic visuals and blackly funny sense of humor, there was that casting. Bringing Davis, Baldwin and the manic Keaton together was a masterstroke of both luck and genius, and who else could take Sylvia Sidney, Robert Goulet and DICK CAVETT, put them in the same movie and actually make them "cool?" It certainly wouldn't be the last time he would make that feat happen, but the timing and the end result would arguably never be more perfect.

BEETLEJUICE is a must-have for any movie library, whether you collect comedy OR horror. It can exist easily in both worlds...kind of like the Maitlands and the Dietzes.

After they die, Adam (Baldwin) and Barbara (Davis) come back to their house as ghosts and find a family is moving in and the couple try to scare them away with help from bio-exorcist Beetlejuice.

Tim Burton's reputation as the darkest and most Gothic director started here with a bizarre but wonderfully different tale of the dead and is both funny, and yet psychological scary, and brings a niche to the market in a strange and sophisticated way.

The film has a terrific opening with Danny Elfman's score exquisite to the bird's eye view of the town going past and the upbeat music plays right into our hands and will gear you up ready for the horror and excitement to begin.

Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October) impresses as ambitious Adam and has good on screen chemistry with Geena Davis (Thelma and Louise) and the pair create many laughs and are a joy to watch, especially when playing around with the sheets.

Winona Ryder (Girl, interrupted) gives a great performance as Lydia, the weird and wonderful teenager, who gives the film a more serious and realistic feel against Keaton's comic Beetlejuice.

The star of the show is Keaton (Batman) who plays bio-exorcist Beetlejuice, a crazed man who is evil, eccentric and enjoyable to watch, because he is weird and different, one of Tim Burton's finest creations, right up there with Edward Scissorhands. Beetlejuice is just so weird that he is almost lovable. What makes these characters work is the writing.

The plot is very consistent, if seeming a bit weird and far fetched to begin, with plenty of dark humour and amazing characters. There is plenty of physical comedy and some slapstick which spreads the humour through different characters. The dialogue is pitched well, also giving some cheesy but really likable puns on the dead.

The ideology of ghosts is covered well, playing on human interpretations and putting twists and turns on this idea, and making it funny through a book for the dead.

The settings make this different to, with a different look upon heaven and hell, and the model of the town plays a great small yet significant setting. The colour and lighting hep achieve the dark and sinister feel of the narrative, as does the Oscar winning make up.

Tim Burton has created some wonderful films in his directing career, and whereas this film isn't as powerful as Sweeney Todd or Edward Scissorhands, it is easily the funniest and a joy to watch

Tim Burton's unique visual style is evident from the very beginning in this quirky and darkly comedic masterpiece. The blend of supernatural elements with the bizarre creates a surreal and captivating world that keeps viewers engaged throughout the film.

While I'm not always a fan of absurd humor, I'll make an exception for this one, given its creativity.

I also wonder if Burton took inspiration from Frank Herbert's Dune novel for his giant sandworm. Both films share an eerie, otherworldly feel with huge creatures lurking beneath the sand.

The sandworms, or Shai-Hulud, were a key part of the Dune universe and, while not as central to the plot as the sandworms in Dune, the Beetlejuice sandworm is also memorable and bizarre, adding to the film's offbeat.

BEETLEJUICE is an incredible exploration and unique depiction into the life hereafter, delivering plenty of laughs, friendly frights, and a great colourful cast of characters.

This film is so unique and detailed in its imaginative world building and gothic-yet-wacky set design, respectively. It's a joy to watch it all unfold, from the rapid-fire dialogue to the countless visual and physical gags.

All the practical effects, set design, and stop motion work are as impressive as they are admittedly creepy. The performances are individually unhinged, from Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, to Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara. But to put it simply, Michael Keaton as the titular bio-exorcist is sparingly utilised, and pure comedy gold.

The only real downsides come down to the plot and green-screen. As with most comedies, BEETLEJUICE is quite light on story, but makes up for it in seemingly every other possible way. And there are several rare instances of noticeable usage of green-screen, but as aforementioned, are hardly there and far from too distracting.

The movie is a spectacular creative vision brought to life thanks to unique writing, ingenious world-building, and a stellar cast. When in the mood for a different kind of dark comedy for almost all ages, watch BEETLEJUICE.

Beetlejuice. Terribly funny. An excellent comedy from the genius Tim Burton. The costumes and decorations also deserve special praise. Also, a rather interesting and strange plot of the whole film. The title of the movie is Beetlejuice, but Juice itself is very small, and it practically does not affect the plot in any way, and this all makes the film even more interesting.

Tim Burton is a film directing god. Beetle Juice shouldn't work but it just drags you in and engulfs you in Tim Burton's insane fantasy world. The star power in this film is off the charts and they all excel in their roles.

I just finished watching Beetle Juice and I want to watch it again.