Beetlejuice (1988) Review: Burton’s Bizarre Magnum Opus

Tim Burton’s off-kilter and rather dire imagination makes Beetlejuice work as a reverse haunted house tale nearly four decades later.

After newlyweds Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) die in a car accident, they find themselves stuck haunting their New England farmhouse. When they try and fail to scare away the insufferable new owners, the Deetzs (Catherine O’Hara and Jefferey Jones) and their teenage daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder, of Stranger Things), they enlist the rambunctious spirit Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton, of Batman 1989), whose help only brings chaos.

Not much about the film makes sense. Beetlejuice plays more like a stream of haphazard ideas than a well-conceived narrative, but its brisk pace works in its favour; it doesn’t give us time to digest its quirks and we’re rather pushed to embrace them.

Once the Maitlands make sense of their dire fate, they travel to the afterlife’s waiting room, a supernatural realm inhabited by distressed souls. Some of the film’s best moments take place in this waiting room, where we meet various other spirits whose appearances indicate grisly deaths, including a sawed-in-half magicians assistant, a charred man having a smoke, and a diver with the shark that killed him still chomping on his leg. Cartoon-like makeup and puppetry only bolster Burton’s darkly whimsical style, and the look of this place is bizarre, like a warped bank vestibule with willow trees spiralling from the ground.

A grim detail I hadn’t noticed when watching Beetlejuice as a preteen was that those who committed suicide became civil servants in the afterlife. The receptionist, Miss Argentina 1939, reveals she slit her wrists; a man hanging from a noose delivers mail to desks, and Juno, the Maitland’s caseworker, blows cigarette smoke out of her sliced throat.

Unable to frighten the Deetzs alone, the Maitlands contact foul-mouthed ghost Beetlejuice (spelled Betelgeuse in the film) to aid them. Keaton brings a vivacity to the role that makes Beetlejuice feel otherworldly and dangerous while still imbecilic and humorous, often taunting the couple and making crude remarks. While his presence can sometimes feel ill-suited to the narrative, Beetlejuice breathes life into this haunted house tale.

Beetlejuice is indeed a haunted house tale, but in reverse, where instead the humans are the annoyance we want to exorcise from the house. Delia and Charles Deetz and their friend Otho are too preoccupied with turning the Maitlands’ house into a new-wave work of art to notice the existence of ghosts. Their daughter Lydia, however, is drawn to the macabre, quickly befriending Barbara and Adam. A lot of the story revolves around Lydia’s coming of age. Behind her gothic veil, Lydia feels isolated among her egotist parents, who often dismiss her intellect and melancholia. Despite Delia and Charles’ indifference, Lydia is unafraid to be herself, finding comfort in the Maitlands, whose friendship helps her realise life doesn’t have to be as mundane as death.

Beetlejuice is an inventive illustration of Burton’s personality, with Keaton’s transformative turn as the titular character bringing spunk to this snappy horror-comedy.

Beetlejuice is now available to watch on digital and on demand. Find out everything we know about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and discover the most important Beetlejuice characters!

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