Beetlejuice (1988)
This ghost story became one of the classic comedies of the 1980s, thanks to an early career-defining turn from Michael Keaton, and a twist to the expected point of view. With a script by Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren, director Tim Burton takes the tragic, accidental death of a young married couple, and uses it to explore life, death, love, family, ambition and fate – all through the lens of a haunted house. The twist, however, lies in the fact that it is the ghosts that want to rid their house of the living, as opposed to the other way around – at least, initially.
Newlyweds Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) are killed in a car accident, when they swerve to avoid a dog on a quiet road. Not realizing that they have, in fact, passed on, the two return home to find things are not as they should be. When they attempt to leave the house, for example, they are plunged into a strange and unfamiliar landscape, filled with giant worms.
They eventually come to understand the nature of their new situation – a moment that coincides with the arrival of the new owners of the Maitlands’ home. The Deetz family – father Charles (Jeffrey Jones), second wife Delia (Catherine O’Hara) and daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) are the absolute antithesis of Adam and Barbara, who have discovered that they must remain in the house of 125 years.
Knowing that a century and a quarter in a house with the Deetz family would be unrelentingly awful, the Maitland’s are told by their afterlife caseworker that their only option is to drive the Deetz family out. Matters are complicated by the fact that the teenage Lydia Deetz can see the Maitland ghosts, and also by the fact that the Maitlands enlist the help of bio-exorcist Beetlegeuse to scare the Deetz family away. Beetlegeuse is unhinged, though, and is really only there to serve his own agenda.
To have Tim Burton’s distinctive visual style and satirical tone applied to film sequences involving the after-life is truly a gift, as he paints a picture that is both hilarious and based firmly within the horror genre.
Published: May 25, 2016 01:12 pm