A Reel 25: BEETLEJUICE

"I'm the ghost with the most, babe."

 

 

This month marks the 25^th anniversary of Tim Burton’s BEETLEJUICE, or for those of you no longer amongst the living…BETELGEUSE.

After the financial success of PEE-WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE (1985), Tim Burton was now considered a bankable director and was given the go-ahead to begin work on his vision for BATMAN. While his caped-crusader film struggled through development, Burton stumbled upon the script for BEETLEJUICE. The story was essentially THE EXORCIST in reverse; a recently deceased (not diseased) couple looking to “exorcise” a living family from their former home, with or without the help of a devious “bio-exorcist” named Betelgeuse.

Bringing the cast of dead folk to life involved some clever casting. Michael Keaton, who was unknown to Burton at the time, turned in a spectacular, if not iconic performance as the title character. The supporting cast of Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Catherine O’Hara, Jeffery Jones, and Winona Ryder are still remembered for their BEETLEJUICE characters. The film’s visual effects, which involved stop motion, replacement animation, puppetry, and blue-screen, was an intentional throw-back to B-movies, and Danny Elfman’s memorable soundtrack was boosted by a few selections from Harry Belafonte’s catchy catalog.

BEETLEJUICE was a financial and critical success, winning an Oscar for Best Makeup and three Saturn Awards. The film gave Burton the leverage to finally get his vision for BATMAN on the screens; a vision which would inspire the Dark Knight in the movies for the next two decades.

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Would you like to know the easiest way to scare your little sister out of the room screaming? Easy: say Beetlejuice three times! That was the sort of impact BEETLEJUICE had on this Blogger’s home two decades ago, and an example of the cultural stamp the film still has. Today, it is considered to be Tim Burton’s most memorable film, and possibly Michael Keaton’s finest hour. It is a clever mashup of horror and comedy, and underneath it all is a subtle message of the dead having a better understanding of life than the living. BEETLEJUICE is a film worth mentioning more than three times.

"It's showtime...!"