User Reviews

It may take two or three viewings to warm up to "Beetlejuice". It has a kooky, cockeyed sensibility and a rhythm that is by turns easy, lazy and frenetic. A charming couple in New England die and come back to their beloved home as ghosts, determined to rid the place of the horrendous new tenants. Possibly the most benign and engaging performance ever by Alec Baldwin; Geena Davis, Winona Ryder and Sylvia Sidney are also very appealing. The new couple from New York who take over the house (Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O'Hara) aren't as well written or thought-out as the other characters and some of their bemused, dry-ice comic lines take a few seconds to reach you. Of course, there's Michael Keaton, wildly comic as Betelgeuse. I recall hearing comments back in 1988 that Keaton wasn't around enough to make the picture worthwhile, but that's only if you watch the film for the fast quips and sight-gags. Keaton is truly wonderful, but he's also bombastic, and I felt there was just enough of him to satisfy--it's really not his story anyway, it belongs to Baldwin and Davis; Betelgeuse is used as a horny, vulgar punchline. Director Tim Burton is very careful not to overload the movie with raunch; he is surprisingly careful in setting up this story, and he works magic within a dubious scenario: a comic fantasy about dead folks which ultimately celebrates life. ***1/2 from ****

Considering he's not in the film that much and the film is named after his character he steals the whole show when he appears front and centre. He is so good you're amazed by him I wouldn't be surprised if Jim Carrey didnt use Michael Keaton's performance as Beetlejuice as a template for his fantastical cartoon character Stanley Ipkiss in the The Mask. Love the B Movie special fx and the Shake Senora dance scene. Little peave though was Betelgeuse/Beetlejuice dilemma. Wish they explained it a bit better thought I was having a dyslexic turn kept checking after all these years in was reading the name of the film wrong, kept stopping the film to check the title. The only downfall. All in all funny and out there film. I'd just watch it for Keaton's performance.

This is a great movie to simply watch and enjoy--no need to think or analyze--just enjoy the silliness and cool factor of this nice film.

A young couple living in their dream house (Alec Baldwin and Gina Davis) are accidentally killed and thereafter live as ghosts in the home. Some time later, a family of freaks (Jeffery Jones, Catherine O'Hara) and their disaffected daughter (Winona Ryder) move in--much to the ghosts' chagrin. That's because instead of respecting the lovely home's charms, the parents want to turn it into a pseudo-intellectual freak house. However, Winona somehow is able to see and communicate with the ghosts--but her parents can't believe that they exist or that they're doing anything wrong with the house.

The dead couple try to scare away the family, but their attempts are really lame (and funny) and this only makes the weirdos want to stay even more! So, out of desperation, they seek out the most evil and obnoxious ghost, Beetle Juice (Michael Keaton) to help. The problem is that although Beetle Juice is able to scare anyone, he's also a total maniac and once let out, he's amazingly difficult to stop.

The film abounds with many things you'd expect to see in a Tim Burton directed film--weird special effects, an odd set design (after the weirdos transform the house), fun and a definite "cool factor". The actors do a fine job as well. Additionally, the script is smart and fun. While some might find this too dark a film for young kids, for older kids and adults, it's mighty entertaining and silly. Plus the music is just so darn infectious and fun!

This is one of Tim Burton's best films. His sophomore effort shows the story of a married couple (the Maitlands played with good degree by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) who die accidentally off a bridge and wind up the target for a upper-class family (including a young yet well played Winona Ryder) and a weird yet scary ghost (with the most) named Beetleguise (or Beetlejuice in a scene of laughs) played to immense complexity by Michael Keaton. Sure this plot may sound a little anti-climactic being mainly gags and not really a focused story, but so what? In a film where you see sandworms from saturn, shrimps that attach after calypso and a nut who has seen the exorcist 167 time (insert quote here), why bother with a plot. Great fun every time I watch. Reccomendable to anyone.

Watching this one more time on TV yesterday reminded me of the first time I saw it all those years ago at the movies when Tim Burton was just the guy who had directed that funny Pee-wee Herman movie. Walking into 'Beetlejuice' then, without knowing anything about it, was an amazing experience. Along with 'Blade Runner', 'Blue Velvet', 'Videodrome', 'Brazil', 'Paris, Texas', 'The Terminator' and 'Repo Man' it was one of the most astonishing and memorable movies of the 1980s, an era dominated by Hollywood dreck like 'Flashdance', 'Top Gun', and 'Footloose'. The whole Bruckheimer/Simpson/Spielberg/Hughes zeitgeist that dumbed down popular movies as never before. Movies like 'Beetlejuice' were a glimmer of hope in a truly awful period.

The big question is - how does it stand up today? The answer is better than ever! In fact I would argue that 'Beetlejuice' is Tim Burton's most successful and least compromised film. Everything about it is perfect. A great cast lead by the very appealing and likable Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis as the newly dead Maitlands, a star turn by Michael Keaton as the gonzo "bio-exorcist" title character, and strong support from Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O'Hara, and especially Winona Ryder (a performance that really put her on the map), as the new occupants of the Maitlands house. 'Beetlejuice' juggles gruesome, trippy and genuinely witty sequences, and ends up becoming one of the freshest and surreal movies to find a mainstream audience since the heyday of 60s/70s "head" movies. Forget Burton's more recent hit and miss big budget efforts, and try this for the real deal, Luis Bunuel meets Tex Avery meets George Romero, and then some! 'Beetlejuice' is a blast!

This is by far Michael Keaton's best performance. Every time he comes on the screen he displays such an eccentric performance that it rivals Jim Carrey from 'The Mask', only without as much help from computers. If his role calls for gross he brings revolting; pushy he brings offensive; witty he brings hilarious sarcasm. One of my few complaints is that he doesn't get enough screen time, although he does have a large portion of it, most goes to Gena Davis and Alec Baldwin.

Tim Burton's directing is great. My favorite scene by far doesn't even have Michael Keaton in it. Anyone who has seen this will remember it as the dancing dinner scene.

This is a classic. If you haven't seen it then you must've'e grown up under a rock or born before I was.

You gotta figure that only Tim Burton could come up with this! An ultra-zany story of rural couple Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis), who accidentally get killed and witness a tasteless couple moving into their house, forcing them to hire "bio-exorcist" Beetle Juice (Michael Keaton), is truly something else. With a new joke almost every minute, the movie never gets dull. And how about that soundtrack? "Day-O" in the most morbid comedy ever? Yep, it's all here. Great support from Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones as the tasteless couple, Winona Ryder as their disaffected daughter Lydia, and Sylvia Sidney as afterlife counselor Juno, make this one of the coolest movies of 1988!

One of my favourite movies of all time. It's a Halloween classic. Spooky, funny and very rewatchable. I am waiting for that moment when I forget this movie again and get to rewatch it. Beetlejuice is a creativity booster, an inspirational, in an artistic sense, film. The sets, the wardrobe, the props - everything inspired me as a kid and made me love those dark-romance, Tim Burton motives.

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.

Despite an interesting premise and several impressive, unsurprisingly strange sight-gags, 'Beetlejuice (1988)' isn't really all that engaging. It isn't bad, but it doesn't quite grip you in the way it should. It isn't particularly funny, for instance. It's also somewhat undisciplined, with a plot that seems to operate on an "and then this happens" logic. Of course, the thing has its more successful moments. Keaton is good as the eponymous creepy character, bringing a lot of unnerving energy to the role. Baldwin and Davis do a good job of playing an everyday couple forced to cope with an inconceivable situation, too. The film is at its best when Burton's signature weirdness is allowed to run wild, with stop-motion monsters and grotesque make-up galore. It can be a very visually pleasing experience. It just isn't all that entertaining as a whole, though. It's hard to say why, but it just isn't all that compelling. 5/10

Tim Burton's Beetlejuice is a great film. The director was given free reign to make his own film visually and it is great. The casting is good, but the standout is Michael Keaton. Keaton is absolutely hilarious in the title role. This movie is very funny and well done.

This starts very well with an original and interesting take on the afterlife. The prospect of two naive but likable ghosts having to learn their haunting skills on the job was delightful. As was the depiction of a monstrous bureaucracy behind the scenes, not far removed from Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Had the second half proceeded along these lines, this would have been a true classic.

Alas, things start to go downhill with the appearance of the title character, one of the most annoy characters in cinematic history, not made any better by Michael Keaton's mannered performance. One is grateful that he does not put in much of an appearance.

The film then abandons any attempt at intelligence to instead go in for a lot of gimmickry. The reaction of the family to the dinner table haunting could have been made plausible if the haunting had not been so wildly over the top. Nor is it clear where Baldwin and Davies acquire the ability to control humans and create disembodied hands. They do not demonstrate this skill anywhere else.

More overblown (but unfunny) scenes kill any willing suspension of disbelief leading to the rushed and clunking finale.

With ghosts and the dead, one would normally anticipate a horror movie loaded with screams and gory figures. But in Beetlejuice, we see a new dimension humour being experimented with.

Taking into the account that the movie was made in 1988 with limited special effects, Beetlejuice could be simply labelled as "creativity at its best".

Tim Burton is a pure visionary and with this movie you cannot help but appreciate the amount of creativity he has and his ability to translate it to screen.

Acting is top-rate from all fronts. One can't help but admire promising young Winona Ryder - a flower ready to bloom.

It would take a couple of viewings to be appreciate the movie in totality.

Beetle Juice may be strange and oddball at first, but like several films I have seen over the years, it could well grow on you. Essentially it is a landmark supernatural comedy as well as being a refreshingly flaky fantasy crammed with wit and invention, that I think is one of Tim Burton's better films along with Batman, Ed Wood and Edward Scissorhands. It is also a marvellously imaginative view of the afterlife as a ghoulish extension of mundane earthbound problems. The visuals once again are absolutely wonderful, with dark cinematography, imaginative sets and zany special effects. The script are filled to the brim with one-liners that are funny and somewhat demonic, the score from Danny Elfman is fun and the direction is pretty much superb. And I loved how offbeat the performances were, with Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis suitably low key as the recently deceased couple who want to rid their new home of human pests. Speaking of those human pests, Catherine O' Hara proves herself fantastically pretentious as the artist whose creations come to life in one of the film's most memorable scenes, and Jeffrey Jones and Winona Ryder are also memorable but it is Michael Keaten as Bettelgeuse, the unstable freelance exorcist who steals the show who portrays the character as unique and completely and utterly insane. Overall, unique, imaginative and lots of fun. 10/10 Bethany Cox

In 1988, prior to the inordinate success of "Batman" (1989) which would line his pockets, Tim Burton bequeathed this work which is from his own words: "a comical version of "the Exorcist" told from two dead people's point of view". I have never been a fan of William Friedkin's masquerade marred by extravagant, ludicrous special effects.

There are also special effects in "Beetle Juice" and they constituted the main attraction for many viewers when the film was released. But unlike Friedkin's enticing work they're much better tapped to serve as complements for the needs of the story but also to depict the beyond after death for Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin. On this point, one recognizes with pleasure Burton's trademark. The filmmaker had visibly pleasure to recreate a quirky vision of hell enhanced by extravagant scenery with rather loud colors and populated with funny monsters. This hellish universe has the look of a public services office.

Another positive thing about "Beetle Juice" is that it never really falls into the excessive or the very grim and genteel humor is also an asset for the film. The story has genuine looks in its beginning but takes a derivative direction as the film advances and certain characters verge on the space of cardboard characters. But the actors seemed to be well aware of this problem and perhaps that's why they offer subdued, enjoyable performances. But the prize for the best actor arguably goes to Michael Keaton as the grouchy, dangerous Beetle Juice, absolutely unrecognizable under his make-up.

"Beetle Juice" hasn't got really its place among Burton's seminal works like "Edward Scissorhands" (1990), "Ed Wood" (1994) or "Big Fish" (2003) but if the filmmaker's set of themes and stylish job is your cup of tea, why not give it a chance?

Keaton steals the show as the title character in this off the wall comedy from director Burton. Baldwin and Davis are two new ghosts who try to scare new occupants of their home out, with the help of "bio exorcist" Keaton. Won a much deserved Oscar for its make up effects.

Beetlejuice is one of those films you feel guilty about not liking more. Sounds daft, I know, but it's a bit like not liking as much an aunt everyone else insists is a real sweetie, but with the best will in the world you just can't see it. I mean, Beetlejuice is by Tim Burton, right, and an early masterpiece, right; and Michael Keaton in the title role, delivers a barnstorming performance, right; and it's full of examples of Tim Burton's celebrated off-the-wall, wacky humour right, with loads of imaginative special effects, right. And anyway, everyone, and I mean everyone thinks it's really, really good and really, really cool and just, you know, brilliant, I mean really, really brilliant, right. So if you disagree and, you know, you don't get it, it's your problem, man, because everyone else thinks it's really, really cool and really, really brilliant. But unfortunately I don't think it is really, really good and really, really brilliant. The real problem is that I don't think I even have a problem — I just don't think Beetlejuice is quite as good as everyone, and I mean, everyone, right, says. It's rather like Robert De Niro's performance in Mean Streets: everyone says it's pure genius, then you see it, and you think: aren't they exaggerating just a little, I mean, just a little? It's good, yes, but . . . Beetlejuice is this film I had heard so much about, which was truly original and with which Tim Burton first made his name (or something). But I had never seen it because somehow I didn't when it first came out, and then it was never in a cinema near me or else when it was shown on TV, I didn't get to hear about it until it was too late. But I also made a mental note that I simply must see it and when I found that one of our local supermarkets was selling a copy for £4, which is my sort of price, in it went into the shopping basket. In the event, I didn't get to slip it into my DVD player (i.e. my iBook) until a few weeks later, but when I did, I couldn't get rid of the niggling suspicion that I was in for something of a disappointment. Now, it would be pointless to go into chapter and verse pointing out a flaw here and a flaw there, because, quite truthfully Tim Burton does have a rather extraordinary imagination and in many respects Beetlejuice is streets ahead of the competition. You might even say that Burton re-wrote the rules for making films in a certain kind of genre, although I would be hard-pushed to give that genre a name. But let me give just one example: the Maitland's are in so many ways such caricatures that you assume such characterisation will be part of the plot. But it isn't. Then we are presented with the Deetz family and their camp interior designer and again the characterisation is so broadbrush that you wonder just at what level the whole thing is being pitched. Well, actually, it doesn't matter. This is cartoon stuff, except that it doesn't feature animation but acting. OK, fair enough. Then we get to Keaton giving an undoubted tour de force but in an odd sort of way it never really takes off. We are informed that at one point he was someone's assistant but his behaviour became so extreme that he had to be let go. Well, perhaps I'm being a little over-pernickety here, but I want some sort of back story which would help flesh out Beetlejuice. But all we are led to believe is that he should, on no account, be invoked. Naturally, he is invoked, but oddly the film finishes quite soon afterwards (in an ending which involved a deus ex machina of such obviousness that I would bet my shirt the writer simply did not know how to end his story. In fact, apart from the fact that one could dies and wants to scare another couple out of their home, what was the story. When the film came, I was even taken by surprise: was that it? I thought, for although by now Beetlejuice had already been running for 90 minutes odd, in a sense it was only just getting going. But no, that was it, like it or lump it. Perhaps, I am expecting too much. Perhaps I am being too serious. Perhaps I should just relax and get into the spirit of the film (and no silly pun intended there). The trouble is that Beetlejuice could have been so much more. We often say that so-and-so was more than just the sum of its parts, and hope to indicate that it included an x factor which raised it above the rest. Well, for me Beetlejuice is, in a sense, less the sum of its parts. It seemingly has everything, but . . . Oh well, I'll just have to firm a sub-group of those who don't think this is the best thing since sliced bread.

Many older movies date not so gracefully, and when you watch them after awhile, crappy video effects, or bad montage and cutting are so obvious that the whole movie turns sour or very silly. Beetlejuice aged gracefully, thanks to a huge injection of healthy humor, spellbinding star cast, excellent calypso songs, awesome plot and very cynical twists in the story. You saw it, you know it. What else can be added to this great film? Winona Ryder is very cool choice here, she is dark, moody and way way out there, but her deep sense of humor helps her get through all the initial sadness. Great work by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin also add much to the whole crazy vertigo of gags, jokes and laughs. Good camera work also helps, and even old-fashioned video effects do not spoil the party and do not steal the infectious joyousness of the story. Highly recommended

This is one of my favorite movies. Makes me laugh every time I watch it. It's got so many great things going for it:

Acting: Winning, engaging, funny. Some really great performances from some great actors early in their film careers: Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones. Add to that a side-splitting supporting performance from Sylvia Sidney, and you have an A-1 cast hitting their strides brilliantly.

Direction: Released the year before his masterpiece BATMAN, Tim Burton was clearly having a ball making this film, and it shows. Crisp, tight, fast-paced.

Story: Unique. Starts off a little slow, but picks up considerably when the Dietzes show up, and gets progressively wackier from there.

Intangibles: I will never again be able to listen to "The Banana Boat Song" without thinking of shrimp cocktail.

If you haven't yet seen this one, rent it and give it a chance. You'll love it.

Absolutly Hilarious!! Micheal Keaton must have had the greatest time doing that movie. It is one of his best. Watch the scene when Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis first see him on TV and he's doing the commercial. I laugh so hard every time I see that. It's a 10 for sure!

`NICE ****IN' MODEL! --(Honk!)(Honk!)' -Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton)

The Maitlands are young newlyweds, happily getting by in their little New England town, that is, say, until they both get killed in a car accident. Returning as ghosts, they find the afterlife to be a surreal world, where the dead suffer the same problems as in life (just amplified to a crazy extent). Assigned to haunt their old home, the find the job more than troublesome, as the Dietzes, a disturbingly trendy couple from New York and their depressed, gothic daughter, Lydia (Winona Ryder) move in. Unable to scare these people away, and sick of seeing their home renovated (i.e.-`gutted out'), the Maitlands hire a `professional bio-exorcist' by the name of Betelgeuse (played very well by Michael Keaton), to extract them. Cartoonish mayhem ensues. This is Tim Burton's 2nd movie and it is a laugh riot. This is definitely worth seeing

What interested me about beetlejuice was the highly innovative concept. However, after the innitial ohhing and ahhing about it, I got a little bored. I really didn't get into this movie like the majority did although I thought the whole conception of the idea was brillient. When I think of Beetlejuice now, I think of a cute innovative film with great acting that in spite of it all, bored me silly at times.