We can say many positive things
about this fun movie, including: great casting, great performances,
great effects, great art direction, and a clever story, that has fun
speculating explanations for why ghosts stick around and generally don't
leave their haunted house, and offers a fascinating, speculative look
at the after life, which involves paper work and a slow working bureaucracy,
employed by people who had killed themselves. Screen veteran, Sylvia
Sidney, shines as an overworked case worker, Juno. Even when dead, the
script imagines that ghosts have to follow rules set forth by a slow
working bureaucracy, and a hard to read book, that reads like a stereo
manual. In such an inefficient system, what would an unhappy couple
do about getting the obnoxious living, the Deetzes, out of their house?
They go to the private sector, to a shady entrepreneur - Beetlejuice!!
Michael Keaton, as Beetlejuice,
is wildly out of control, and wildly hilarious as the ultimate dead
pest. He has so much fun with a crazy comedy role like this, that it's
easy to see why he didn't want to keep playing Batman forever. He is
"a jangled juggernaut of jokes, jolts and jive." He hurls
one-liners, spins into grotesque, gobbles insects, and just can't leave
the ladies, living or dead, alone."
Not much of the script is based
on real hauntings, and the explanations are brilliantly creative thoughts
of Michael McDowel and Warren Skaaron. A more realistic explanation,
based on past cases, for the reason why this young couple would stick
around, is that they died suddenly in an accident, did not want to leave
their beloved home and felt they had unfinished business; finish wallpapering,
decorating their home, and working on the town map. (See CA: The
Whaley House; NV: Virginia
City; KS: Fort
Leavenworth; DC: The
Capitol Building; NY: The
Bank Street House)
The film benefits from a great score
by Oingo Boingo's Danny Elfman, the first of several successful collaborations
between Burton and Elfman. The classic calypso music of Harry Belefonte
also turns up, to great humorous effect, providing the music for a favorite
scene in the movie, where the unhappy pair try to scare the living out
of their house with a "parlor trick," at the Deetzes' dinner
party. Sometimes ghosts become upset when the living do a major remodeling
job on their beloved home, or become upset because the living have moved
into their home, and start haunting the living to various degrees. (See
NH: Admiral
Hawly's House; OR: The
Heceta House; TX: The
Catfish Plantation Restaurant)
In reality, cases have been reported
of ghosts trying to get rid of the living in not so amusing ways. (See
NM: Saint
James Hotel; MI: A
Renovated House in Grand Rapids; NY: The
Thayer Home; WA: Monaghan
Hall, WI: O'Brien
House & The
Cristy House).
Other ghosts have been really happy
when the living remodel or restore their home, and stick around to watch,
become fond of, and sometimes help the living. (See CO: Bradmar
Tudor Manor; CA: The
Madrona Manor, The
Peninsula School).
Other favorite scenes include: The
meetings with their social worker, scene introducing Beetlejuice, back
to the afterlife; funny faces, Ortho's seance, "It's Showtime,"
and the Epilogue (Jump in the Line).
If you enjoyed BEETLEJUICE, you
may like BATMAN, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, MEN IN BLACK, and SLEEPY HOLLOW.
