Movie Review: "Beetlejuice"

I have enjoyed movies and books dealing with ghosts or the supernatural in some way for many years. I just watched Beetlejuice again and I still really enjoy the movie.

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Adam and Barbara were looking forward to spending their vacation doing some projects around their house even though Jane, a family member, kept trying to sell the house out from under them. Unfortunately they died in an accident and they returned to the house as ghosts. If they left the house, they would end up in some sort of weird desert with giant sandworms. Jane didn’t waste any time in selling the house to Charles and Delia. Charles and his daughter Lydia were happy with the house but Delia hated everything and planned to remodel with the help of Otho. Adam and Barbara tried to get the family to leave. When that didn’t work, they turned to Beetlejuice for help even though they had been warned not to.

I really enjoyed Beetlejuice and thought it was very entertaining. I’ve always liked movies that have dealt with ghosts or the supernatural, so I did want to see this when it came out. I didn’t think anything in the movie was really scary, though there was a snake like thing in one scene that did creep me out a bit. Adam and Barbara still had problems after they died - they were just different problems. I thought it was really interesting how the afterlife was portrayed in this movie with all the rules, endless paperwork, case workers and even a book that served as an instruction manual. It was a bit different from versions of the afterlife in other movies. People that don’t like movies about ghosts or the supernatural should pick a different movie.

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Adam and Barbara looked exactly the same after they died. They looked like normal people instead of acquiring the sort of ghostly transparency that so many other movies give ghosts. They didn’t walk through walls either, though they did do some unique things to try to scare the family away. Some of the other ghosts they saw when they visited their case worker did look more bizarre and Beetlejuice had the oddest look of all. None of the other ghosts looked transparent either. Special effects were used in a few different scenes throughout the movie. They were well done when the movie came out but a few of them do look a little dated now. The score, written by Danny Elfman had a creepy and spooky quality that fit perfectly for the movie. A couple of scenes included some very entertaining musical numbers featuring songs by Harry Belafonte. Once Delia made changes to the house, it gained a very bizarre look and is probably one of the strangest houses I’ve ever seen in a movie. The make up that was created for some of the characters was very impressive and won the movie an Oscar.

After the movie was successful, a cartoon based on it was created. I actually saw the cartoon before I first saw the movie. I ended up being confused because of that since there were changes for the cartoon. Lydia and Beetlejuice were best friends and visited each other frequently. Adam and Barbara weren’t in the cartoon or mentioned at all that I remember, so the first time I saw the movie, I was wondering who they were. It also seemed weird to me that Beetlejuice and Lydia weren’t friends. I enjoyed both the cartoon and the movie even though they were different.

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Beetlejuice combined elements of a ghost movie with humor. Most of the humor was darker in nature, which may bother some viewers. Death was brought up more than once since the main characters were ghosts. Some of the things done for laughs were kind of silly, but they worked with what was going on. There was a little bit of gross humor, but nothing as extreme as many of the newer comedies use now. Beetlejuice did add to the humor once he showed up though his actions and some of what he said. The humor he added was more crude in nature so it could offend some viewers. Parents may not want their children to see and hear everything he was saying and doing because of that.

Beetlejuice was a family friendly ghost movie for the most part. Some of the things shown might upset younger children, so parents may want to watch the movie first. I really don’t think of this has a horror movie and don’t think it was really scary and there was no violence. Even though the movie was rated PG, a version of the world that rhymes with luck was used once by Beetlejuice. I was shocked when I heard that when I watched the movie again because I knew what the rating was. I honestly don’t remember ever hearing that word when I’ve watched the movie before, though I think I only saw it on television so that would have been edited out. It does seem kind of odd to me that a movie rated PG would have that word in it, so parents may want to keep that in mind if they plan to watch the unedited version with their children.

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Adam and Barbara were happy and loved their house even though Jane thought it was too big for them. It was briefly hinted at but not really addressed that they had been unable to have a baby. They were both very likable and just trying to deal with being ghosts trapped in a house with Delia and her crazy design ideas. Adam Baldwin and Geena Davis were both good in the parts, making the characters likable and believable. Jane only turned up briefly, first when she was pestering Adam and Barbara to sell the house and then once again to drop off a key. Jane was related to them, though I’m not sure how. She had decided that Adam and Barbara needed to sell their house and took to showing pictures of it to potential buyers. I really didn’t like her that much, so it was fine with me when she didn’t return.

It seemed like Charles had made the decision to buy the house on his own because he needed to get out of the city and find some peace. I’m thinking he had been close to a nervous breakdown before the move, but that was never said for sure. Delia was very different from her husband and wasn’t exactly thrilled to be living in the middle of nowhere. She had crazy ideas for the house and insisted on carrying them out to keep her sanity. She was flamboyant and created strange sculptures. She and Charles didn’t seem to have anything in common. Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O’Hara were very good in the parts. Otho was someone that Delia knew from the city who was going to help her remodel the house. He shared her strange and bizarre ideas.

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Lydia was Charles’s daughter and she was quick to point out that Delia was her stepmother. I don’t remember it being said what happened to her mother. Lydia always wore black, usually had a camera with her, and did act depressed a lot of the time. Winona Ryder was fine in the part. Beetlejuice was a wild ghost who hadn’t followed the rules and ended up in some sort of ghost exile or something. He was desperate to get out and did everything he could to find way out. He was kind of gross looking without being really disgusting and did act rude and crude most of the time. Michael Keaton was wonderful in the part.

Beetlejuice is a very entertaining ghost movie. It is family friendly for the most part, though parents may not want children to see or hear a few things. Fans of Michael Keaton should give the movie a chance.