A newly deceased couple hate the new family that moved in their old house, so they call upon a deranged ghost named Beetlejuice to scare them off .

Rating: 9/10 (15 September 2012)

Tim Burton is one of my favorite directors of all time. You can say he's Hollywood's "goth" director because he's known for his dark, macabre and surreal style. This is one of his best known films, possibly his signature film next to Edward scissor-hands and The nightmare before Christmas. Even though this is one of the most unique, creative and imaginative films ever, it does have one major flaw, much of the story simply dosen't make sense. Let me start by saying this film is a unique take on ghost comedies. Even though the movie's titled Beetlejuice, the main characters are really the Maitlands, played by great actors Alec Baldwin as Adam and Gena Davis as Barbra, who are an old fashioned couple who drowns in the start of the film. Davis and Baldwin are great in their roles in playing an un-hip, boring and naive couple, which perfectly clashes with the more unconventional Deetz family and you understand their motives. Burton has a fascination with the dead and I love his unique take on the afterlife. Here the afterlife is run like a bureaucratic business, the Maitlands are given "The handbook for the recently deceased" which is a thick boring book about instructions for living in the afterlife. And later they go to the main office of the afterlife, where they have to take a number and wait to be called and then there'll meet their caseworker Juno. The Maitlands find out that their trapped in their own house as ghost, if they try to leave the house they go to a bizarre place call Saturn and meet a giant sand-worm. I love how Tim gave a memorable twist to your average ghost comedy with the ghost being the one haunted by the living. I love how Tim created the Deetz family who moved in the old Maitland's home. The step-mom is Delia played wonderfully by Catherine O'Hara who dominates the family. I love her Gothic art work and she looks kinda sexy here. I love Jeffery Jones as the "I don't want to get involved" dad. And there's Winona Ryder as the depressed, suicidal teenager Lydia, who dresses like everyday's a funeral. This is one of Ryder's best performances and Lydia is interesting as she's the only person who can see ghost and would rather be friends with the dead then the living. And last but not least there's Micheal Keaton as Beetlejuice. Tim's a good story teller but unconventional. The title character dosen't appear until well after 40 minutes into the movie. I think he has only a total of 17 minutes of screen time in this movie, which sounds bad for a title character but like in Batman(also stared Keaton as the title character),where the title character dosen't appear a lot, Tim makes it work well. In a way everything is a much needed build up to introducing Beetlejuice. Keaton gives his best & most manic comedic performance. Beetlejuice is one of the most unique and memorable characters of all time. He's a deranged, erratic acting, gross and perverted ghost. But the bad thing is that he's such an interesting character but Tim never really explains anything about him. Juno explains he use to be her assistant but then became a bio-exorcist, claiming he can "get rid of the living". But that's all he explains about him. Why do you have to say his name three times before he can appear? Why is he trapped in the model Adam created? What kind of a name is Beetlejuice? Why does he spell his name Beetlegeise?, Why couldn't he tell Lydia his name?, What's his cause of death?, How old is he? Who was he before he died?, Why does he have to marry Lydia in order to be free? and Why is he more powerful then other ghost we see? Unfortunley none of these questions are answered. In fact a lot of the story dosen't make sense, like Juno telling the Maitlands that the living can't see the dead but later she tells them to scare the Deetz by creating scary faces and Lydia can see them. It's also unclear weather Beetlejuice is supposed to be a villain or some anti-hero. I personally look at him as a bad guy. But if you overlook the fact that a lot of the plot is incoherent this is a very enjoyable film. The film is visually great! Tim's surreal visual are some of the best of surrealism's I ever seen. The calypso songs works well into the movie. Danny Elfman's score is great, it sounds like a manic circus. I also like the cheesy looking special effects. One of the highlights are seeing the other dead people and their look mirroring their death, like the receptionist who slit her wrist, the sexy woman cut in half and Juno who's throat's slit. Tim is able to make humor out of a grim subject like death. He even makes Lydia's attempt at suicide humorous. Warner Bros. really missed an opportunity to do a sequel to this film, maybe they could've explain more about Beetlejuice. Never the less a ghost comedy classic.