a dark and unique comedy.

Rating: 10/10 (4 December 1999)

Beetlejuice is a very unique movie, but I'm not surprised. Tim Burton, master of the macabre, directed this odd movie. I have to say that this movie isn't only dark, it's hilarious. The movie is truly funny, and the blend between horror and humor was superb. It's about a wife and husband, played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin, who die in a car accident. The two still live on Earth, but as ghosts. Suddenly, a family moves into their house and changes it all around into a cold and weird house. The two ghosts are now miserable, so they decide to try to scare them out. It doesn't work. They go into the spirit world to ask for some help. Their advice lady gives them some excellent ways to scare them out. It still doesn't work. But something else happens, too. The family's weird daughter, played by Winona Ryder, finds out about them. She becomes they're freind. It still doesn't stop the ghosts desire to get them out of the house, so they do something no one thought of. They called a man from the spirit world, one who specializes in these sort of things. His name is Beetlegeuse, pronounced Beetlejuice, and the scares he has in his bag of tricks are much, much scarier than the ones the two have tried already. But they start to figure out that Beetlejuice isn't doing this for them, but for himself. He loves to scare, and he'll do anything to do it. They find out that he threatens the life of the family's daughter, and themselves. They must stop him.
Although it sounds sort of like a serious horror story, the movie is a total comedy. Still, it has a lot of Tim Burton style quirkiness in it. Michael Keaten is wonderful as Beetlejuice, and once again, Danny Elfman does a great score. If you like dark comedies, and you love Tim Burton, go rent this movie this second.