Beetlejuice (1988)

October 30, 2018

Directed by: Tim Burton

Written by: Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson, Warren Skaaren

Starring: Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Michael Keaton

Budget: $15,000,000

Quote: "Ah. Well... I attended Juilliard... I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT... NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY... NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I'm qualified?"

Trivia: The original script was a horror film, and featured Beetlejuice as a winged, reptilian demon who transformed into a small Middle Eastern man to interact with the Maitlands and the Deetzes. Lydia was a minor character, with her six-year-old sister Cathy being the Deetz child able to see the Maitlands. Beetlejuice's goal was to kill the Deetzs, rather than frighten them away, and included sequences where he mauled Cathy in the form of a rabid squirrel and tried to rape Lydia. Subsequent script re-writes turned the film into a comedy, and toned down Beetlejuice into the ghost of a wise cracking con-artist, rather than a demon.


Overview: My wife decided on being Beetlejuice for Halloween but to my surprise she had never seen the movie. So, while the movie is much more of a comedy than a horror, I'm going to throw this one on the list of horror movies. Also, while I have seen the movie at least a dozen times, I haven't seen it since I was barely a teenager two decades ago. It was interesting revising this beloved childhood movie. There were several surprises that I didn't realize about the movie as a kid:

• I had no idea Otho was gay. It's super obvious watching it now, but as a kid I think he was just an eccentric guy who decorated houses.
• I also missed the fact that the movie is an awful artist who is incapable of selling any of her terrible art. Once again, I thought she was eccentric, but isn't that what artists are?
• Beetlejuice is actually a lot scarier than I remember. I was too focused on the silliness of the movie and ignored his first attack on the family as a snake where he nearly breaks the father's neck before alluding to a sexual attack on the daughter. Later, he forces the daughter to marry him and is continually trying to get the ability to kill the living parents. He does kill Maxy D, the famous  business guy, and his wife (he launched them through the roof, literally).
• Winona Rider is awesome as the angsty teenager that is obsessed with death. I really think it was this role that prepared her for Heathers.
• Calypso is still such a weird choice for the soundtrack but it works perfectly!
• The movie makes me want to revisit the animated series.
• I'm not sure how Tim Burton got such a dark subject with an F-bomb to only get a PG rating. Not even PG-13?!

...what's your thoughts?