X
- 1988
- TV-MA
- 1 h 32 m
- 1988
- TV-MA
- 1 h 32 m
Summary What's a couple of stay-at-home ghosts to do when their beloved home is taken over by trendy yuppies? They call on Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), the afterlife's freelance bio-exorcist to scare off the family – and everyone gets more than she, he or it bargains for! [Warner Bros]
Directed By: Tim Burton
Written By: Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson, Warren Skaaren
- 1988
- TV-MA
- 1 h 32 m
- 1988
- TV-MA
- 1 h 32 m
Beetlejuice
70
8.6
Where to Watch
Summary What's a couple of stay-at-home ghosts to do when their beloved home is taken over by trendy yuppies? They call on Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), the afterlife's freelance bio-exorcist to scare off the family – and everyone gets more than she, he or it bargains for! [Warner Bros]
Directed By: Tim Burton
Written By: Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson, Warren Skaaren
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
70
72% Positive
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
22% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
6% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
70
72% Positive
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
22% Mixed
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
6% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
The story almost comes off the rails, but Beetlejuice’s charm lies more in the execution. The movie is crammed with visual invention and snappy comedy. The afterlife is richly imagined as a macabre bureaucracy. The living world is no less outlandish, especially with those eye-popping interiors and costumes.
Driven by director Tim Burton (Pee Wee's Big Adventure) and his fanciful imagination, the film is colorful, delightfully deranged and endlessly inventive — a grand-scale funhouse that can be enjoyed by children of all ages.
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 403 User Ratings
8.6
91% Positive
368 Ratings
368 Ratings
7% Mixed
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
1% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 403 User Ratings
8.6
91% Positive
368 Ratings
368 Ratings
7% Mixed
29 Ratings
29 Ratings
1% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
My favorite Tim Burton movie and a true classic I rewatch from time to time. It is a fantasy comedy with horror elements and a truly great cast. The abstruse situation, humor and characters create a unique movie experience. Be warned Tim Burton the director is famous for his unique style but not everyone likes it. For me this is not a problem as I am a fan of most of his movies. The story follows Barbara and Adam Maitland on their way to their country home near the town Winter River in Connecticut. They have a car accident and when they return home they recognize a “Handbook for recently deceased” atop on other things. Obviously they died at the accident and have to deal with deceased bureaucracy so bad even German authorities cant compete with (I am German so I know about this). Things get serious when the house is sold to the Deetz family which consist of Charles his wife Delia and goth daughter Lydia. I stop here to avoid spoilers. Like I already said it is a fun, enjoyable and unique story. It works from start to finish and I cant remember a week moment. The great actors and humor make this an incredible experience. Lets continue with the actors aka characters. Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice (actually written as Betelgeuse) is absolutely awesome. One of his best performances and truly remarkable. Then we have the Maitlands with Geena Davis as Barbara and Alec Baldwin as Adam. Both are great and fully deliver their roles. They work so well together. The Deetz are also great as Jeffrey Jones as Charles and Catherine O’Hara as Delia are totally selling the love to hate characters. Wiona Ryder as Lydia is another favorite and rivals Beeteljuice for best character of the movie. We have an awesome cast of actors that deliverer a truly good performance. Of cause I have to praise director Tim Burton too and extend this to the whole team behind the screen. The practical effects were amazing for its time and aged well. The special effects while being good did age a bit but still work for me. I think the art style and effects in general improve the movie. Overall I consider it as a must see movie. The style, story, humor and actors are too good to be missed. A sequel was announced for 2022 but I fear they cant recreate this success.
Report
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
Report
Take Topper. Add a pinch of Pee-Wee Herman and a dollop of the Addams Family. Mix in Nightmare on Elm Street (any part will do), The Money Pit, and the lighter side of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The result will be unlike any movie ever made, and it won't begin to come close to Beetlejuice . [Apr 1, 1998]
For all the film's popped eyeballs and severed limbs, Beetlejuice retains an innocence that makes the grotesque humor very appealing. Burton has captured the sweet ghoulishness of a 12-year-old pouring over horror comics, dreaming of the greatest Halloween costume ever invented. [30 Mar 1988]
A surreal, demented delight.
The screenplay is foolish and Michael Keaton overplays the title role badly, but director Tim Burton gives the comedy a heap of visual imagination. [22 Apr 1988]
It's two hours of your life wasted, time once spent that can never be regained. Don't go. Don't do it. [30 Mar 1988]
I enjoyed this Tim Burton movie it was not the best. I have watched but I enjoyed it much. I think the biggest problem is that the characters that are interesting like Amanda and Beetlejuice has very little screen town to the main couple that is just always there and not that interesting I understand they are supposed to be our point of view characters, but they are just not that interesting.
Report
Bottom line: Classic Tim Burton film that makes for a solid evening around Halloween.
Adam (Baldwin) and Barbara (Davis) Maitland are a young, recently married couple. They are vacationing at home and make the quick trip to the local hardware store. On their way back they crash off a bridge into a river. Somehow, they walk back to their house (though they don’t exactly remember how) and, drenched, they try to dry off and warm next to the fire they don’t remember starting. They soon realize they drowned in the river and are now ghosts. They still want to try and live, or exist, happily in their home. Unfortunately, a new family (the Deetz’s) from New York buys the house and starts to move in. The Maitland’s decide to haunt the house to scare away the unwelcome residents. After repeated failures, they resort to calling Betelgeuse (Keaton), a freelancer who turns out to be far more trouble than he’s worth.
Beetle Juice is, for me, one of those movies that you actually sit down and watch once but you see it in parts here and there. I first saw Beetle Juice when I was little and I thought it was creepy and somehow depressing. After re-watching it just the other day, I still think it is creepy and depressing but I will say that it is good.
The acting is really rather good. I had forgotten that it was starring a very young Alec Baldwin. As soon as he spoke, I did a double take and thought, “I think I recognize that amazing voice.” Michael Keaton does a really good job at creating Betelgeuse a unique character. I didn’t realize it was him until I looked at the credits. It was like learning that Tim Curry played Pennywise the Clown in Stephen King’s It. It is a combination of makeup and acting to create something new. Winona Ryder fits perfectly into the aesthetic of the film. It made me wonder why she didn’t do more stuff with Tim Burton.
Beetle Juice is one of the few movies that ends with a dancing sequence that I don’t particularly find offensive. Lydia received an “A” on her Chemistry paper so the Maitland’s possess the house so it plays Harry Belafonte’s “Jump In The Line” and possess Lydia to make her float in the air and dance. Many of the dancing sequences I’ve seen use the opportunity to cycle through the characters as they dance to show their status. In Beetle Juice, we cycle through the characters but they aren’t dancing. They are just doing what they would normally be doing: Lydia’s mom is sculpting some modern art and Lydia’s father is reading. It is mildly silly but it isn’t going for a zany ending.
Overall, I’d recommend Beetle Juice if you haven’t seen it before but, considering it has been on TV about a million times, you probably have. Would I recommend you see it again? If it is Halloween time, sure, why not? It isn’t a scary movie and in terms of humor, it’s alright. I didn’t laugh out loud but chuckled here and there.
Report
Beetlejuice has some cool visuals and an entertaining character but that’s about it. The film is slow paced, has some bland characters, and some cheesy and stupid moments. The stuff involving life after death is cool providing both an interesting concept along with some great visuals and I wish the film had spent more time there. Instead we spend most of the movie in the human world focusing on the boring humans. Beetlejuice is cool when he is on screen but its barely little. More afterlife and Beetlejuice could’ve gone a long way in helping this movie. Instead we have pretty stupid with movie with some dumb characters. When its cool its cool and I guess I’m glad I saw it but I feel like ti could’ve been more than just some cool spectacle here and there.
Report
Beetlejuice is quite possibly the worst if not one of the worsest movies Tim Burton has ever made. None of the characters are likeable except for Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice was just ugly and pathetic, non funny, annoying and boring. Terrible acting by most of the cast or the biggest percentage and a terrible film!
Report
Production Company
The Geffen Company
Release Date Mar 30, 1988
Duration 1 h 32 m
Rating TV-MA
Tagline Say it once... Say it twice... But we dare you to say it THREE TIMES
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 3 Wins & 8 Nominations
BAFTA Awards
• 2 Nominations
