I'm not sure how far I will get into 1988, but I just have to do this today since this film's director, Tim Burton, has a new film out today that seems like this one, Dark Shadows, except this one is ghosts and that one is vampires, but they give off the same vibe. So now for the review.
We begin with a newly married couple, Adam and Barbara. They are spending their honeymoon at their home because they enjoy it so much. However Jane, a real-estate person, wants them to sell the house because she feels someone with a family should live in it. The two head down to Adam's model store where he needs to pick up a few parts for a model he is making of the town they live in.
While on their way back they swerve off the road to miss a dog and end up going in the river. They die but return to their house in a sort of afterlife stage where they can't move on. After figuring out they are dead they also realize they can't leave the house due to their geographical location or something.
So within a few days a family moves into the house, the Deetzes. The husband, a normal guy, wanted to move the family so they could leave New York, his daughter has become estranged since the seperation of her parents, and the step-mom has a strange friend named Otho come along. She sculpts the weirdest things you will ever see.
As the family settles in, Adam and Barbara try to scare them away, unsuccessfully. It ends up that the daughter, Lydia, can see them, but she doesn't know how to explain it. Adam wants answers so he reads up on the book they find, Handbook for the Recently Deceased and goes to a sort of headquarters for the dead.
There they meet their case worker, Juno. She tells them that they have to scare them out of the house themselves if they want it back. A few months have passed, and Juno, before she leaves, warns them of Beetlejuice, a sort of free-lance possessor of souls, if you will. He tried to get Adam and Barbara's attention through a TV ad they saw.
Lydia ends up finding them again when they try to scare the parents, and the truth all comes out. Despite telling her parents, Lydia is shut out. The couple then, in desperation, call on Beetlejuice, who transports them into the model Adam is making, where he has set up his grave. He quickly gets on their nerves, sort of that is, and they end up leaving after he freaks them out and sort of comes on to Barbara.
Delia, the step-mom hosts a dinner party for her and her friends from New York. While this party goes on the subject turns from art to ghosts. Delia tries to change the subject, but she becomes possessed by Adam and Barbara and begins to sing Day-O in a scene that seems like it belongs in Ghostbusters because it is that funny. It ends of course with their dinner, shrimp, coming out of the bowl in a hand shape and attaching to their faces.
Adam and Barbara laugh the night away but realize the guests think that it is a trick set up by the Deetzes. After a few lazy attempts to avoid saying it was fake, the guests leave. The Deetzes and Otho, now believing Lydia run up to the attic, Adam and Barbara's hiding place, and see what goes on up there. Otho takes the Handbook and they leave.
Beetlejuice then strikes. He turns the hand railing into a snake, himself into a gigantic snake, and attempts to get rid of the Deetzes. He injures Charles, the husband, and Otho. However, Barbara is able to get him to go away by saying his name three times. Lydia, thinking she's been betrayed, runs into her room.
Charles old boss, Maxie Dean, is informed by the dinner guests about the happenings up there and decides to come down. Otho, who still has the Handbook, plans a seance. Meanwhile, Adam and Barbara go back to dead headquarters where Juno personally adjusts them to scare off the Deetzes. She does inform them that Otho has the Handbook.
When they get back they realize they hate the parents and Otho but love Lydia like a daughter of their own. They decide to let them stay anyways, but it's too late. Maxie and his wife have arrived and Charles poses a deal about turning the house into an amusement park.
Otho prepares the seance and soon it goes on. Adam and Barbara rise from the dead, sort of, and become old and crippled. Lydia turns to Beetlejuice, whom she met earlier and almost set free from the model, and makes him come out. He takes care of Maxie and Mrs. Dean and gets Otho to leave.
Beetlejuice reveals that in order to stay out of the model he has to be married and takes Lydia's hand, but Adam and Barbara come back to youth to take Beetlejuice back to the model. After repeated attempts to say his name three times, Adam is sent into the model, and Barbara is sent to Jupiter, the boundary between the house and the other world.
Right before the wedding is complete, Adam runs a truck into Beetlejuice's foot, it being miniature of course, and Barbara comes smashing in riding a Sandworm from Jupiter, who eats Beetlejuice and takes him to the underworld.
Fast forward a few months later and Lydia is going to school, Delia has gone back to sculpting, Charles in enjoying himself, and Adam and Barbara are fine and dandy. Beetlejuice, meanwhile, at dead headquarters, waits his turn to see his case worker, who happens to have a huge waiting list, and trades numbers with the guy sitting next to him so he can get in next, but the guy has a sort of voodoo quality about him and shrinks Beetlejuice's head. The movie ends with Lydia dancing in mid-air to Jump in the Line.
Now for grading:
Acting: 8 out of 10. Surprisingly strong performances from Alec Baldwin as Adam, Geena Davis as Barbara, and Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice.
Entertainment: 9 out of 10. Quite good.
Screenplay: 9 out of 10. Original, cool, and quick.
Directing: 9 out of 10. Burton does an excellent job the second time around.
Technical Credits: 10 out of 10. The music is astounding, the visual effects looks wonderous, and the rest fills in.
Genre Fit: 5 out of 10. Can't quite decide if it wants to be a comedy or a horror movie.
MPAA Rating: 4 out of 10. An extended cut of the film reveals an F-bomb in a PG rated movie, again. Could have been PG-13.
Stupid Scenes: 9 out of 10. Beetlejuice might get on some people's nerves, but I think he's great so whatever.
Deeper Message: 2 out of 10. Nothing really.
Beginning: 26 out of 30. Just a bit slow.
Middle: 27 out of 30. A bit better.
Ending: 29 out of 30. Now it's on.
Final Rating: 147/180 or 82%. An A-, which is quite close, I might add. So much better than freaking Superman IV.
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