Customer Reviews
Burton's Brilliant Bonkers Beetlejuice - By: Stampy, 07 Oct 2008 
After they die, Adam (Baldwin) & Barbara (Davis) come back to their house as ghosts & find a family is moving in & the couple try to scare them away with help from bio-exorcist Beetlejuice.
Tim Burton's reputation as the darkest & most gothic director started here with a bizarre but wonderfully different tale of the dead & is both funny, & yet psychological scary, & brings a niche to the market in a strange & sophisticated way.
The film has a terrific opening with Danny Elfman's score exquisite to the bird's eye view of the town going past & the upbeat music plays right into our hands & will gear you up ready for the horror & excitement to begin.
Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October) impresses as ambitious Adam & has good onscreen chemistry with Geena Davis (Thelma & Louise) & the pair create many laughs & are a joy to watch, especiallly when playing around with the sheets.
Winona Ryder (Girl, interrupted) gives a great performance as Lydia, the weird & wonderful teenager, who gives the film a more serious & realistic feel against Keaton's comic Beetlejuice.
The star of the show is Keaton (Batman) who plays bio-exorcist Beetlejuice, a crazed man who is evil, eccentric & enjoyable to watch, because he is weird & different, one of Tim Burton's finest creations, right up there with Edward Scissorhands. Beetlejuice is just so weird that he is almost loveable. What makes these characters work is the writing.
The plot is very consistent, if seeming a bit weird & far fetched to begin, with plenty of dark humour & amazing characters. There is plenty of physical comedy & some slapstick which spreads the humour through different characters. The dialogue is pitched well, also giving some cheesy but reallly likeable puns on the dead.
The ideology of ghosts is covered well, playing on human interpretations & putting twists & turns on this idea, & making it funny through a book for the dead.
The settings make this different to, with a different look upon heaven & hell, & the model of the town plays a great smalll yet significant setting. The colour & lighting hep achieve the dark & sinister feel of the narrative, as does the Oscar winning make up.
Tim Burton has created some wonderful films in his directing career, & whereas this film isn't as powerful as Sweeney Todd or Edward Scissorhands, it is easily the funniest & a joy to watch
8.5/10
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice! - By: Bazzer, 30 Aug 2008 
As a young movie fan I was told by my Dad that I cannot calll myself a true movie fan unless I start watching some of the classic movies that were around before the 90's. So seeing as nowadays the DVD charts can be fairly hit & miss, some weeks have some great movies, others are not so good, it makes it difficult to find something good to watch.
So when my Dad & I rummaged through the bargain box at Blockbuster to see if there was any hope of finding a decent movie, I came across Beetlejuice. Of course I'd heard of it & knew what it was about, but it was a movie that I thought I just wouldn't go out of my way to watch. My Dad, who had already seen it & loved it, quickly snapped it up & we headed home to watch it.
I never would of guessed just how good this movie was going to be. It was just such a good film, & once it had finished I certainly kicked myself for avoiding it alll these years.
The cast were alll cast perfectly, but it's Michael Keaton who reallly made this movie for me with his great, comical performance as Beetlejuice. He was just so wacky & reallly great to watch, & he delivers some great lines thorughout the movie.
Alec Baldwin & Geena Davis were also very funny as the recently deceased couple, seeking help to get rid of the new arrivals at their home. Although it sounds like a morbid plot, because it's Tim Burton it's works, & is very funny in a dark way, & even though the theme is death the whole film isn't dark & dull, but instead seems to be filled with colour.
So it just goes to show that just because it's old, certainly doesn't mean it's not a good film, so take my advice, don't rent it... GO BUY IT, because this is a movie that doesn't dissapoint! Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice...!
Childhood classic - By: N. Fisher, 08 Mar 2008 As a kid I loved this movie, it was one of those films i would sit & watch time after time. As someone now in their early 20s i rewatched Beetlejuice & I adored it alll over again, its just so unlike anything that has been made since. Geena Davis is great, one of her best acting roles to date & seeing a young looking Winona Rider is magic! I reallly recommend that everyone watches this movie at least once, & if you are anything like me watch it a few hundred times!
A suprising yawn - By: H. Webb, 23 Feb 2008 
I'm reallly upset that I can't understand the amount of praise given to this film. Tim Burton is my favourite director & numerous films such as Edward Scissorhands & Big Fish are my favourites. Yet I found Beetlejuice to be boring & lacking Burton's usual quirkiness. He has definately improved with age & shows how eventuallly one is able to break free from Hollywood narratives, codes & conventions. Beetlejuice's comedy is just not for me- very traditional American. This film, in my opinion, goes alongside Planet of the Apes as not one of Burton's best.
Black pantomime - By: R. J. Harvey, 09 Sep 2007 After the sugary fun of Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Burton made this ingenious & witty horror comedy. Bristling with imagination, it brilliantly showcases the visual style that Burton would come to calll his own with comic-gothic productions like Batman, Edward Scissorhands, & Batman Returns.
Adam (Alex Baldwin) & Barbara (Geena Davis) play the recently deceased homeowners who are desperate to haunt yuppie couple Delia (Catherine O'Hara) & Charles (Jeffrey Jones) off their property. Adam & Barbara find a useful allly in depressive goth kid Lydia (Winona Ryder), before the titular 'Betelgeuse' (Michael Keaton) throws a spanner in the works.
In a way, it's a pity the film has been granted a 15 certificate because there's plenty here for kids to enjoy. Adam & Barbara's complete acceptance of their predicament (namely being dead) is a conceit usuallly reserved for children's films, & their ensuing antics play out like a kind of ghoulish Home Alone. But then Keaton's vile, swearing, swaggering Beetlejuice steps into shot. It's a hilarious performance, perhaps one that Jim Carrey might have a go at these days; & yet I doubt Carrey would be able to create such a magnificently obnoxious hick.
The production design & make-up is fantastic. The purgatory-style waiting room scenes, with alll their shark attack victims & shrunken heads, perfectly house Burton's love for pantomime black humour. Some of the 'bigger' special effects, particularly in the desert netherworld that awaits Adam & Barbara outside their front door, look dated. But hey, no amount of CGI will look this charming after 20 years.
