Beetlejuice (1988) review

Dir. Tim Burton

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★½

Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice is more than just a product of its time that’s managed to stand the test of it. Viewing it now, it’s remarkable to see how the style in which Burton adopts for this film became both his signature as well as a cultural staple. There’s a good chance Hot Topic wouldn’t have nearly as much style and enigma of its own had Burton, along with writers Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren, not come along and craft a picture with so much wit and visual presence of its own.

Beetlejuice also shouldn’t work as well as it does. Its premise is anarchic, gleefully operating without rules. It mixes the paranormal with the surreal; one wonders how a major studio did not dull the particularly sharp edges of its wit and madcap comic sensibilities.

Set in Connecticut, the film opens with Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) living a quiet New England life in a large barn-home they are intent on restoring. Despite the efforts of a real estate vulture begging them to sell the home, claiming it’s “too large” for a childless couple, they are intent on staying put. Cut to a routine car-ride that ends with them crashing on a bridge and drowning in the river below.

Adam and Barbara return to their home as ghosts; as a result, they cannot leave the property and are unseen by most humans. They read but fail to understand the literature provided to them (appropriately titled “Handbook for the Recently Deceased”), but soon find their abode invaded by the Deetz family. Charles (Jeffrey Jones) is a wealthy financier while his wife, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), is an eccentric modern artist. Wilting away in the background is Lydia (Winona Ryder), who moves through life with a Daria-like apathy. She’s ignored by her stepmother, but she can see Adam and Barbara despite them being apparitions.

The “Handbook” prompts the couple to travel to a purgatorial waiting room in the cosmos, where lost souls find themselves stuck in limbo. It’s there they discover that they must remain in the house for the next 125 years, and if they want the family to leave, they’ll have to scare them out. That’s where Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) comes in. A charismatic ghoul with the general resemblance of roadkill, Betelgeuse, once summoned, agrees to help Adam and Barbara scare the Deetzes away.

As if Beetlejuice wasn’t weird enough, the soundtrack is chockablock with Henry Belafonte tunes. Most notably, of course, is “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” utilized beautifully during a scene when Betelgeuse disrupts the Deetz’s family dinner by getting the entire family to sing and dance to the music against their will. Ryder has an outstanding dance scene herself set to Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line” to close the film. Belafonte’s ditties punctuate the film and had an additional element of playfulness for a film that already has no trouble getting high off its own supply.

Beetlejuice has many recognizable faces operating on a wide-variety of plains. Baldwin and Davis are reminiscent of Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon in The Rocky Horror Picture Show insofar that they’re two squares thrust into a situation they did not want and are learning how to operate on the fly. Catherine O’Hara is manic as a mom who, in her mind, is given the right to be messy and insufferable because she is an artist. Even as hilarious as Keaton is, I opine the real star is Winona Ryder, whose Lydia impassively scoffs at the world around her while subjugating her own sadness. Alongside a cast of solidified stars, including a wonderful cameo by the great Dick Cavett, Ryder holds her own.

Bo Welch’s set design feels in some ways like an extension of Burton’s debut, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Welch clearly has fun curating a set where everything seemingly has a mind of its own. Characters can shrink and operate in miniatures (a meticulous creation of Adam), objects shift their structures and completely redesign themselves, and the ensuing surrealism merges that of Gothic stylings and Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Amidst all the madness is Burton, operating like a filmmaker with nothing to lose most likely because that was an accurate descriptor of him at this point in time. A major studio gave him $15 million, and him and his team stretched dollars like limousines and took many a creative liberty. What followed? A should-be cult classic that wound up defining his directorial style and becoming chic enough to be considered a classic. No additional classification necessary.

My review of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Starring: Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Jeffrey James, and Dick Cavett. Directed by: Tim Burton.