Saturday Night Retro Movie Review: Bettlejuice (1988)
September 11th 2010 01:58
DVD Cover - all images sourced from Google
In a small Connecticut town, young couple Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam (Alec Baldwin) Maitland prepare for an idylic two week holiday at home, finishing the renovations to their home and completing a scale model of the town that Adam has been working on for some time.
A quick trip to the local hardware store, and a wandering dog, spell disaster and Barbara and Adam return home to find out they are dead and their home has been sold to a couple from New York.
As the couple, Charles and Delia Deitz (Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O'Hara) move into the quaint, family home along with gothic daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) the recently deceased Maitlands attempt to scare them out, by hanging themselves in the closet, ripping their faces off and severing Adams head. The problem for the Maitlands is, no one can see them.
Despite warnings from their case worker Juno (Syliva Sidney) the Maitlands decide they need help to remove the infestation of the living and call on the afterlife's bio-exorcist Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to help them in getting the Deitz family out of their home.
After a fun family dinner in which the prawn cocktails take on a life of their own, Charles Deitz decides to turn the town into a metaphyscial amusement park, and metaphysician/interior designer Otho (Glen Shadix) uses the Book of the Recently Deceased to force Adam and Barabara to put in an appearance at a fundraising dinner hosted for New York millionaire Maxie Dean (Robert Goulet).
Trapped in the spell Otho has cast, Barbara and Adam begin to age and decompse, and in a panic Lydia begs Bettlejuice for his help. He agrees, on the condition Lydia agrees to be his wife, now and in the hereafter.
Beetlejuice, from director Tim Burton is a wonderful, darkly funny comedy that stands the test of time. It's an easy film to watch, with many laugh out loud moments. Delia's horrendous sculptures coming to life was great and the scene at the end where Delia has sculpted Beetlejuice's head attached to a snake was wonderfully done.
It was hard to believe that Beetlejuice came out twenty-two years ago. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting in the cinema seeing it. The cast are excellent, each person playing their role to perfection.
The animation and attention to detail shows glimpses of the dark genius that Tim Burton was to become with future films such as Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeny Todd.
Beetlejuice is a great film for a Saturday night in with the family and having watched it again it's easy to understand why it spun off into a cartoon series in the early 90's.
If you're looking for a film that is funny and enjoyable to watch, Beetlejuice ticks all the right buttons and will have you laughing as much now, as it did twenty-two years ago when it first came out.
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