“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!”
Man, what a blast. Every scene of Beetlejuice, Tim Burton’s improbably enduring hit, brims with ecstasy and mischief; you can almost sense, off camera, not only the piles of cocaine that led ’80s film executives greenlight this, but also Burton looking around furtively, wondering how he’s getting away with this. Burton captures the B-movie sensibility that fueled so much of his earlier work, which, perhaps not coincidentally, was his best work. Besides this, films like Ed Wood and Mars Attacks! express Burton’s fondness for the bygone days of the drive-in splatterfest. Although Beetlejuice is not a gory (or even violent) film, it trafficks in the same realm. This is sheer giddiness on film.
Burton wisely keeps the viewer waiting to see the titular ghost. Instead, we meet the Maitlands, Adam and Diane, on the first day of their vacation, which is also their last day on earth. We don’t get to know them very well before their demise, but that’s okay, because they’re not really going anywhere. It’s in the realm beyond this one that the creativity behind Beetlejuice really gets a chance to shine. The film is full of great little touches, like the pair reading the dense Handbook for the Recently Deceased, and the idea that the afterlife is a merciless bureaucracy.
Soon the Deetz family – Delia, Charles, and daughter Lydia – moves in, and the Maitlands want no part of that. They’re stuck in the house, and they don’t want any company (this is kind of like a comedic version of The Others). What’s interesting is that the Deetzes aren’t outwardly annoying; extravagant, sure, with a penchant for redesigning the house in the sleek, modern veneer of the 1980s, but the film allows us to sympathize with them as well as with the Maitlands.
When Adam and Diane try to scare the family off, Beetlejuice gets in some of its best visuals. First they dress up as classic sheeted ghosts, but they quickly graduate to mock decapitations and elongated faces. The practical effects here are marvelous, and haven’t aged a day. Even the CGI holds up. None of it looks real, but it isn’t supposed to. Burton purposely wanted things to look fake, as if it were filmed on a soundstage on the Paramount lot. The facade of everything just adds to the film’s charm, and produces some of its most iconic visuals, like the black-and-white sand worm.
Beetlejuice has so much fun being Beetlejuice that it doesn’t seem in any particular hurry to get to its title character, the ghost with the most. That’s a feature, not a bug (this isn’t a fireworks factory situation). Michael Keaton turns in one of the all-time great comedic performances, all manic energy and depraved menace. This is someone who has so much fun being dead that it can’t help but be infectious. His guttural voice and machine-gun delivery land the character firmly in screwball territory, and even if we’re a bit frightened by him, we can’t help but be entranced – and energized.
Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis have great chemistry as the Maitlands, and death doesn’t seem to be a huge problem for them; it’s more confusing than anything. But this is a couple who was going to take a two-week vacation at their house, so an eternity forever isn’t exactly a punishment. Jeffrey Jones is fine as Charles Deetz, but is hardly a focal point of the film. Catherine O’Hara shines as Delia, imbuing her with an equal amount of reality and outlandishness. Winona Ryder, as Lydia, helps cement the film’s legacy. Beyond being good in the role, she immediately became America’s goth dream girl, establishing an archetype that is still around today (we saw echoes of it in this year’s entries Ginger Snaps and Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2).
For all of Beetlejuice‘s macabre charms, it’s not without heart. At the end, Beetlejuice is sent back to the afterlife, and the Deetzes and Maitlands are living in harmony. A sequel was floated (called Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian), but I’m glad it was never made. This stands alone, because it needs to. Like its deceased protagonists, this will never get old.
10/1: Hellraiser / The Invitation
10/2: Splice / Banshee Chapter
10/3: Jennifer’s Body / Raw
10/4: Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist / Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
10/5: Kill List / A Field in England
10/6: Halloween II / Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/7: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge / A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
10/8: Ginger Snaps / Creep
10/9: Cube / Creep 2
10/10: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) / The Ritual
10/11: Hell House LLC / The Taking of Deborah Logan
10/12: Re-Animator / From Beyond
10/13: Beetlejuice / Sleepy Hollow
10/14: Idle Hands / The Lords of Salem
10/15: The Ring / Noroi: The Curse
10/16: I Know What You Did Last Summer / The Monster
10/17: Night of the Living Dead / Train to Busan
10/18: The Devil’s Backbone / Southbound
10/19: Event Horizon / Dreamcatcher
10/20: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / The Bad Seed
10/21: Eyes Without a Face / Goodnight Mommy
10/22: The Strangers / The Strangers: Prey at Night
10/23: In the Mouth of Madness / The Void
10/24: The Amityville Horror / Honeymoon
10/25: Gerald’s Game / Emelie
10/26: The Monster Squad / Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
10/27: Veronica / Jacob’s Ladder
10/28: High Tension / You’re Next
10/29: The Innkeepers / Bug
10/30: The People Under the Stairs / Vampires
10/31: Saw / Saw II
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