Beetlejuice – Film Review

After Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) die in a car accident, they find themselves stuck haunting their country residence, unable to leave the house. When the unbearable Deetzes (Catherine O’Hara, Jeffrey Jones) and teen daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) buy the home, the Maitlands attempt to scare them away without success. Their efforts attract Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), a rambunctious spirit whose “help” quickly becomes dangerous for the Maitlands and innocent Lydia.

When I was about eight or nine years old, after school or on weekends, I would spend a little bit of time sitting on the couch watching some television shows. Usually, I watched kid-friendly networks such as Teletoon (ah, the nostalgia) or Cartoon Network. Sometimes YTV or Nickelodeon.

One year close throughout the month of October, Teletoon or some other similar network was airing a whole plethora of family-friendly horror movies, and of course, being a kid that loved horror, I was one-hundred-percent there for it.

I vividly remember Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice being one of the many films they aired during that month and I also vividly remember being absolutely terrified of it. Even though my first ever viewing experience of the movie was over a decade ago and the memory can be a little hazy, I still to this day remembered that scene early on when Barbara and Adam crash their yellow car through that red bridge house. I don’t know why that scene stayed in my brain for so long, but it just did.

The other scene I remembered clear as day is the scene in which the titular character makes his first physical appearance at about the forty-five-minute mark. Although watching the film today, it was apparent that this is a comedy, back in the day as a kid, the scene where the character first appeared scared the living daylights out of me.

There was just something so incredibly creepy about seeing this strange-looking entity rise up out of a grave and start singing and dancing around. Although I don’t remember what I did after watching the film for the first time, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had to sleep with the covers tucked over my head that night.

Watching the film today though, I wasn’t scared at all. In fact, I found myself laughing and smiling quite a bit even though the film in my personal opinion, isn’t as amazing as most people say it is.

Beetlejuice is an absolutely wacky movie that holds nothing back. Each scene essentially gets wackier than the last, with many scenes audibly causing me to mouth “What the hell?” but in a good way. There are plenty of strange ghouls and other various characters sprinkled throughout this film that really add to this creepy world.

Because while the film isn’t creepy as a whole, it does have an undeniably unsettling atmosphere, even though you’ll more than likely find yourself laughing instead of cowering in fear. It is kind of a shame that the film didn’t try to be legitimately chilling because the potential for a bitingly dark comedy-drama here was high.

And also, there are some instances in which Beetlejuice feels like it doesn’t necessarily even have a story. It simply follows a couple who learn that they are dead and they try to get the new inhabitants to move out by scaring them in various different ways. The plot here is incredibly bland and non-exciting in virtually every way.

Something that needs to be praised immensely here, however, is the score by Danny Elfman. The opening song alone is extremely haunting while also having a playful feel to it. Elfman is easily one of the most talented composers in film history and, in my opinion, his work on Beetlejuice is some of his best work ever.

But what makes this film so much fun is its sense of humor, atmosphere, and of course, the performances, but particularly from Michael Keaton who portrays the titular character. He absolutely does not hold anything back with this role. The script calls for him to be absolutely crazy, wacky, silly, funny and a little bit disturbing, and Keaton is right there to seal the deal. He is easily one of my favorite actors of all time and his work as Beetlejuice is nothing short of iconic.

Another good addition to the cast is Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz, who is the only human character to actually see both Adam and Barbara. Despite her character’s potential – seeing ghosts and being a paranormal lover all while inside of Beetlejuice’s twisted world – was high, the character doesn’t get too much to do here, even if Ryder is great.

At the end of the day, however, Beetlejuice is still a wildly fun movie that has an extremely creepy atmosphere and is loaded with good humor. It’s genuinely shocking to me that a sequel has never been made. Maybe one day. A guy can only dream.