Say It Once, Say It Twice, Three Times The Charm.

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2012)

Love him or hate him, Burton is brilliant in his own wonderful eccentric way and his movies show this.
So without further adu, I present to you my lookback on the 1988 classic Beetlejuice (which is spelled Betelgeuse sometimes after the star) Our protagonists are a newly deceased couple named Adam and Barbara Maitland, played by a young Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis.
While I normally find Alec Baldwin to be creepy especially seeing as in he got cast in bad guy type roles throughout the 90's and not to mention those Hulu adverts where he's an alien, he's actually very likable in this movie.
Both he and Geena do rather well in their performances in this movie and they have a lot of fun.
Adam and Barbara get involved in an accident and drown, only to come back as ghosts and to find out that some rather unwanted visitors are moving in.
The so called visitors in this are the eccentric artist Delia Deetz, her husband Charles, their lovely goth daughter Lydia and of course my personal favorite non BJ character - Otho.
Otho (played by Glenn Shadix) is an interior designer/fashion guru and 'paranormal expert' and he has some of the funniest lines in the movie even though he's a bit of a snob.
Delia and Otho plan on redesigning the Maitland's house into what I could best describe as a "modern art nightmare crossed with Salvador Dali" and this upsets our two ghostly heroes.
The way ghosts are represented in this movie is very intriguing especially seeing what the afterlife is like, it's like a work office with a room you have to wait in.
Also on an interesting sidenote, you can see a cameo in shadow by Jake and Elwood Blues of the Blues Brothers during the waiting room scene.
Lydia is the only one who can see the ghostly couple, and she forms a bond with them - as they treat her like she's their own child which is very endearing. Live people cannot see them because they ignore the strange and unusual...and she is by definition "strange and unusual".
The movie is full of really fun moments as well as scary moments, including some brilliant special effects - no CGI required at all, in fact this is pre-cgi.
This includes when Adam and Barbara pull their faces to make them into their "Scary/Creature" forms, the sandworms, and not to mention Beetlejuice himself.
Which brings me to the title character Beetlejuice, who is played by Michael Keaton - and he is fantastic in the role, bringing the right amount of ghoulish grossness and mischief to the role.
He is a blast to watch on screen and his pranks are ingenious, including what does at the end when he turns into a carousell (with might I add....a very early prototype for Jack Skellington on it).
And it's still funny seeing what he did to poor old Otho, changing his outfit to a blue suit. There's nothing scarier to this guy than clothes that are out of style. Am I the only one who feels sorry for poor Otho? Surely i'm not the only one.
This movie was really entertaining when I was little and it still is to this day, and it spawned a theme park attraction and an animated cartoon series. There was also a planned sequel in the works but it didn't come to fruitition.
There were also two action figure lines, one by Kenner based off the movie and another line based off the cartoon. As well as some figures by Neca including "Stretch-Faced Adam" and "Stretched Faced Barbara" and Beetlejuice with spikes coming out of his body.
The Kenner line had some interesting figures in it with their action figures, why they even had one of Otho! Imagine that...Otho getting an action figure. (note to self: Search on ebay for Otho action figure to go with my Mayor of Halloweentown plush).
The cast is all wonderful, I already mentioned how great Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis were along with Michael Keaton but it's time to mention the other wonderful cast members.
Catharine O Hara (who also starred in SCTV, Canada's answer to SNL alongside my favorite comedian John Candy, as well as being in Home Alone, and the voice of the villainess in Bartok the Magnificent), Jeffrey Jones (who plays Delia's husband, and the year after this movie came out was in Who's Harry Crumb, one of my favorite John Candy movies), Winona Ryder as the lovely Lydia Deetz and of course the late great Glenn Shadix as Otho Fenlock.
I love Shadix's performance in this and I know it's weird but I still tend to quote Otho's lines once and a while (I can actually do a sort of impression of him as well).
The score is beautiful and also very spooky with my favorite piece being the theme tune as well as the Harry Belafonte songs Bananana Boat song and Jump In The Line (okay, I believe you!).
Speaking of the theme tune, I heard it in an episode of the 2002 revival of the Basil Brush show, it was in the episode where Basil and Stephen become mad scientists.
Providing you with laughs from here to the Neitherworld, Beetlejuice is sure to make you scream and laugh at the same time all at once.