Beetlejuice (1988)
Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis) are a recently deceased young couple who find themselves haunting their beloved home. When the eccentric Deetz family moves in and begins making drastic changes to the property, Adam and Barbara grow desperate to reclaim it. Their afterlife caseworker Juno (Sylvia Sidney), urges them to scare the new occupants away, but as ghosts, they're not exactly terrifying. Instead, when the Deetzes realise their house is haunted, they love it. Adam and Barbara summon the chaotic Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) for help, only to realise he's far more trouble than he's worth.
The Deetz family consists of goth teenager Lydia (Winona Ryder), her dad Charles (Jeffrey Jones) who just wants a quiet life, and her stepmother Delia Delia (Catherine O'Hara), an overconfident "visionary" artist determined to remodel everything according to her own warped taste. Helping her realise her avant-garde nightmare is the fabulously pretentious interior designer Otho (Glenn Shadix).
Each character is distinct, and the cast plays them brilliantly, especially in the iconic "Day-O" dinner sequence. The stand-out is, of course, Michael Keaton. He turns Betelgeuse into a madcap, deranged, grotesquely charming, manic pervert who delivers rapid-fire lines like a chain-smoking undead Groucho Marx. Impressive considering he only has 17 minutes of screen time. Some might find his character a little too much though. And I've never really understood why his name is Betelgeuse in the film, but the title says Beetlejuice. This was also an early but defining role for Winona Ryder, whose line "I myself am strange and unusual" sums up not just her character, but the entire film.
The plot is dark, funny, bizarre and imaginative, and it's refreshing to see a mainstream film that tries to do something different. It demonstrates the creative talents of a young Tim Burton, and some of the style that would define his future movies. The set design leans into German Expressionism, giving the film an artificial, almost stage-like quality that perfectly suits its otherworldly topne. The worlds within the house, from Adam's miniature town (home to Betegeuse himself) to the bureaucratic afterlife offices, are bursting with colour, shadows, odd angles and clever lighting. Even the remodelled house, under Delia and Otho's guidance, feels less like a home and more like an art installation. The only real normality we see in the film is around Lydia who, ironically, feels that she is anything but normal.
My one criticism is that it could have done with a bit more of Adam and Barbara figuring out some of their ghostly powers, as they go from trying to haunt the house wearing sheets, to somehow being able to possess and control the dinner party guests. How did they get there?
The film features lots of special effects, but these are done with traditional B-movie methods. There's stop-motion animation, prosthetic modelling, and visual trickery. But, as this film is a mish-mash of all kinds of stuff, it all gels together quite cohisvely.
Throw in a great soundtrack, some wonderful calypso tunes and Danny Elfman's score, and you've got a great package of the weird and the wonderful.