DVD Reviews

Beetlejuice (20th Anniversary Edition) – Blu-ray Review

By Dana Rae Oct 5, 2008, 11:28 GMT

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice! Or ‘Betelgeuse’ as it’s spelled on a tombstone. Say his name three times and human exorcist might help, or maybe not. He is a rather perverted and grubby spirit. Anyway, he comes to Blu-ray.

I actually saw Beetlejuice at the theatre (and I am dating myself here), and I loved it. The film has become one of my favorite movies (in my top ten of all time). It is a dark comedy with Michael Keaton providing most of the bombastic laughs.

Beetlejuice is a mysterious character - we first have to come to terms with him feeling up Barbara (Geena Davis) in front of her husband Adam (Alec Baldwin). He is, as he claims, ‘the ghost with the most’! The plot of the story is: Barbara and Adam have a wonderfully quaint New England house that they had put a lot of time and energy into (and there are hints they would have liked to start a family and live the American dream). Their dreams are shattered with their death by drowning - which as it turns out is one of the luckier deaths in the afterlife (keeps you whole and moving!). The house they loved is turned into a post-modernist act deco horror by the couple that buys it and buys it rather quickly, too (the first moments of the film are of Barbara and Adam fending off a pesky realtor who already has a bid for their beloved house). The couple that buys the house (Catherine O’Hara and Jeffery Jones) does a wonderful job of playing their characters over-the-top, especially O’Hara who steals several laughs with her general outrageousness. The couple’s daughter is played by Winona Ryder who is a confused little girl (maybe pre-teen) who wears lots of black (veils and hats included). Ryder’s character actually indentifies with Barbara and Adam and tries to help them
They are, or were, really nice people and the afterlife doesn’t change their general charm and whimsicalness. In fact, Ryder becomes, in a way, the child they never had (as seen in the last few moments of the film), and they in turn become the parents she never had.

So, it works for the good of all even if they had to die to make things happen in untraditional ways.

O’Hara’s character is expressed through the way the house changes - the hideous art and sculpture, the total rearrangement of the kitchen. She throws a dinner party that combines the repulsiveness of the house with the dreadfulness of social amenities. This is one of my favorites scenes of all time - when Barbara and Adam finally take control and possess the people around the table, making them sing and dance.Of course it doesn’t work, and Beetlejuice comes to the rescue, or not, as the case may be. Being the character he is, he tends to go overboard and actually scare everyone. But who wouldn’t be scared of a dead guy with a moldy neck and a pendant for eating bugs and groping any woman in his general vicinity? And there is some mention of him surviving the Black Plague…not the kind of guy you would take home to grandma. Still, Keaton plays him with a grotesque liveliness that really makes you squirm in revulsion! Keaton’s Beetlejuice, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest characters ever created in cinema. This being a Tim Burton film before Batman and Nightmare Before Christmas, it has classic Burton elements that any fan of the genre will love. When Beetlejuice emerges in a silly hat with a carousel on it, the creature reminds one of Burton’s later works and one can see, briefly, atop the hat, a character face that resembles Jack the Pumpkin King.

Also, the use of stop motion is evident through the various creatures (such as when Adam and Barbara try to escape from their house and end up in a desert world with a sandworm chasing them) and Beetlejuice haunts.

The music is done by whom else? Danny Elfman, of course, and adds a melodic melancholy buoyancy to the film. One of the special features that the Blu-ray has is that you can watch the movie with just the music. The special features are rather light: a CD soundtrack sampler, three episodes from the animated Beetlejuice TV series, and a theatrical trailer. The lack of real special features makes this "20th Anniversary Edition" edition a bit of a disappointment, but the quality of the picture and sound make it worth the purchase.Does Beetlejuice hold up on Blu-ray? If you loved the film to begin with, you probably won’t have a problem with the few inconsistencies (such as the make-up) that show up on Blu-ray’s 1080p crystal clear picture. Blu-ray makes such a crystal clear picture that sometimes the make-up appears too much to be believable (such as the black around Beetlejuice’s eyes). Also, in one of the last scenes, when Ryder is suspended in the air and dancing, the wire holding her can be noticed if one is very observant. But, for any fan of the original, this is a joy to behold on Blu-ray and should not disappoint. Highly recommended.