In the idyllic small town of Winter River, Connecticut, Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis) are a happily married couple who are content to fix up their house while on vacation from working the local hardware store. However, on a routine drive the Maitlands inadvertently plunge their car into a river trying to avoid hitting a dog in the road. Upon their return home the Maitlands start noticing odd things such as not remembering how they returned home and eventually discover with their inexplicably acquired book The Handbook for the Recently Deceased that they died in the river and are now ghosts bound to the property. A bad situation is rendered worse when their home is sold to the yuppie Deetz family consisting of stressed architect Charles (Jeffrey Jones) who hopes for peace and quiet, Charles' tacky socialite would-be artist second wife Delia (Catherine O'Hara), and Charles' gothic death obsessed daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder). As the Maitlands try to scare the Deetz' out of their home to no avail Lydia begins seeing glimpses of them, however a fast talking lecherous con-man named Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) offers his services as a "bio-exorcist" to the Maitlands to get rid of the Deetzes, but Beetlejuice may be even worse than they are.
Following the success of Tim Burton's debut film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Burton became bankable enough for Warner Bros. That he became attached to the long stalled in development Batman. While Batman continued its turgid development Warner Bros. Offered Burton a number of scripts many of which he hated including the infamous Hot to Trot. Eventually Burton was given the script to Beetlejuice and decided it would be his next project. The script, originally written with a much darker and less comic edge was reworked by written Warren Skaaren and gave us the final darkly comic toned end result. The film received positive screenings from test audiences and upon release the film became a sleeper hit opening at #1 at the box office and staying there for four consecutive weeks ultimately making $74 million in North America alone against its $15 million budget which gave Warner Bros. The confidence to formally greenlight Batman which would only make Burton and even bigger name than he already was. Beetlejuice has become one of Burton's most iconic films as its undeniably the first film where Burton's signature style is fully on display (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure had glimpses, but it wasn't quite the Burton we all know). Visually creative, darkly funny, and incredibly quotable, Beetlejuice has become a classic for a good reason.
At its core, the movie is a culture clash of two exaggerate types with the Maitlands represent humble, nice, down to earth people while the Deetzes represent the garish tackiness of obnoxious urbanites who revel in excess and inanity and even when they come to small towns to "get away from it all" their thoughts turn to "how do we make this more like where we came from?". Burton loves larger than life characters and he does well with the over the top likable Maitlands and the over the top tacky Deetzes but we also get a more grounded core in Winona Ryder's Lydia who despite being positioned as a gothic outsider, is also ironically the most normal and down to Earth one of the group and serves as our proxy through which we experience the supernatural shenanigans. Baldwin and Davis are both incredibly likable and have fantastic chemistry as Adam and Barbara, and Catherine O'Hara is delightfully over the top as she voices her disgust with the Maitlands home and mutilates it along with her buffoonish and foppish interior designer Otho (Glenn Shadix) who's very much a jack of all trades and a joke at all of them. But of course, we can't talk about Beetlejuice without discussing the titular character and he steals every scene he's in thanks to the manic energy brought by Keaton to the role. Very much a Bugs Bunny by way of the Cryptkeeper, Beetlejuice is repulsively funny as he's essentially this fast-talking conman with vulgar appetites and lecherous leanings that he doesn't even try to hide that culminates in a satisfying climax where everything is fully unleashed.
Beetlejuice is an inverted take on Ghostbusters with the crazy surreal imagery that would become part and parcel to many a Tim Burton production. With sharp clever writing, beautifully ugly visuals, and memorable lines and characters it's no wonder why Beetlejuice's legacy has endured as long as it has.
Following the success of Tim Burton's debut film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Burton became bankable enough for Warner Bros. That he became attached to the long stalled in development Batman. While Batman continued its turgid development Warner Bros. Offered Burton a number of scripts many of which he hated including the infamous Hot to Trot. Eventually Burton was given the script to Beetlejuice and decided it would be his next project. The script, originally written with a much darker and less comic edge was reworked by written Warren Skaaren and gave us the final darkly comic toned end result. The film received positive screenings from test audiences and upon release the film became a sleeper hit opening at #1 at the box office and staying there for four consecutive weeks ultimately making $74 million in North America alone against its $15 million budget which gave Warner Bros. The confidence to formally greenlight Batman which would only make Burton and even bigger name than he already was. Beetlejuice has become one of Burton's most iconic films as its undeniably the first film where Burton's signature style is fully on display (Pee-Wee's Big Adventure had glimpses, but it wasn't quite the Burton we all know). Visually creative, darkly funny, and incredibly quotable, Beetlejuice has become a classic for a good reason.
At its core, the movie is a culture clash of two exaggerate types with the Maitlands represent humble, nice, down to earth people while the Deetzes represent the garish tackiness of obnoxious urbanites who revel in excess and inanity and even when they come to small towns to "get away from it all" their thoughts turn to "how do we make this more like where we came from?". Burton loves larger than life characters and he does well with the over the top likable Maitlands and the over the top tacky Deetzes but we also get a more grounded core in Winona Ryder's Lydia who despite being positioned as a gothic outsider, is also ironically the most normal and down to Earth one of the group and serves as our proxy through which we experience the supernatural shenanigans. Baldwin and Davis are both incredibly likable and have fantastic chemistry as Adam and Barbara, and Catherine O'Hara is delightfully over the top as she voices her disgust with the Maitlands home and mutilates it along with her buffoonish and foppish interior designer Otho (Glenn Shadix) who's very much a jack of all trades and a joke at all of them. But of course, we can't talk about Beetlejuice without discussing the titular character and he steals every scene he's in thanks to the manic energy brought by Keaton to the role. Very much a Bugs Bunny by way of the Cryptkeeper, Beetlejuice is repulsively funny as he's essentially this fast-talking conman with vulgar appetites and lecherous leanings that he doesn't even try to hide that culminates in a satisfying climax where everything is fully unleashed.
Beetlejuice is an inverted take on Ghostbusters with the crazy surreal imagery that would become part and parcel to many a Tim Burton production. With sharp clever writing, beautifully ugly visuals, and memorable lines and characters it's no wonder why Beetlejuice's legacy has endured as long as it has.