America has long had a case of Beetlejuice fever. The horror comedy was the 10th-highest-grossing movie of 1988 domestically, helping launch the career of its young director, Tim Burton, who would go on to make the one-two punch of Batman and Edward Scissorhands. A Beetlejuice animated series soon followed, airing for four seasons total (three on ABC, one on Fox) between 1989 and 1991. From 1992 to 2016, there was a Beetlejuice live show at Universal Studios Florida; the final performance is, blessedly, available on YouTube. In more recent years, Beetlejuice has been transformed into a musical (full title: Beetlejuice: The Musical. The Musical. The Musical.) adored by theater enthusiasts. (The Beetlejuice musical is also where a sitting U.S. representative got kicked out for disruptive behavior, including vaping and some [clears throat] public displays of affection.) Now, the film is finally getting a sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which promises to double down on the macabre high jinks that made its predecessor a cinematic staple for spooky season.
Here’s where I must make a confession: In my 32 years on this Earth, I have never seen Beetlejuice. Perhaps it’s because my emo phase was short-lived, but being a Burton Boy never appealed to me, and after watching his dreadful Planet of the Apes remake, I wanted nothing to do with him. (Shout-out to Ape Lincoln, though.) All I knew about Beetlejuice was that Michael Keaton was the title character, and that, like Bloody Mary, saying his name three times will only cause trouble. I also have it on good authority that goth Winona Ryder was a formative crush for many kids of a certain generation. (I get it, I saw Mr. Deeds.) But much like Mank became the perfect opportunity for a Ringer colleague to watch Citizen Kane for the first time and blog about it, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has forced my hand. I’m ready to catch Beetlejuice fever and share my experience with readers.
The short version: I cannot believe this endearingly batshit movie was rated PG. For some more expanded thoughts, here are my 14 most pressing questions after watching Beetlejuice; spoilers for a 36-year-old movie below.
1. Are we sure staycations are good?
In the sleepy town of Winter River, Connecticut, we are introduced to Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), a young married couple in the process of decorating their country home during a staycation. Credit where it’s due, the Maitlands have the kind of quaint, old-fashioned abode that would be a hit on an Architectural Digest video tour. (Adam is also working on a painstakingly detailed diorama of Winter River; he and Viserys Targaryen would totally vibe.) The couple’s lives change forever when Adam asks Barbara to run into town with him for [checks notes several times] a new brush for his tung oil. On the drive home, Barbara evades a dog mindlessly walking in the middle of the road, and their car ultimately crashes into a creek. Just like that, the Maitlands have shuffled off this mortal coil, and that dog did not give a fuck:
Now, I’ve got nothing against staycations; many of us embraced them during the dark days of the pandemic. But for the Maitlands, this ill-fated staycation became the ultimate what-if: Odds are they’d still be alive if they decided to jet off to Jamaica for a week. Home is where the heart is, but sometimes one has to leave it to truly appreciate what they have. And if you don’t go away for a vacation, there’s always a chance a bloodthirsty dog will send you to your doom.
2. Is Beetlejuice actually about gentrification?
I didn’t go into Beetlejuice expecting any commentary on the world we live in, and yet one of my biggest takeaways from the movie is that it, somehow, has a lot of interesting ideas about gentrification? Before the Maitlands perish in a car accident, they are hounded by a local realtor—Jane Butterfield (Annie McEnroe)—who insists they sell their home to a wealthy couple from New York City. Jane goes so far as to make a shady remark about how their house is simply too big for a childless couple to own; I would’ve run her ass off the property with a shotgun.
With the Maitlands gone, Jane is able to sell the home to the aforementioned couple, Charles and Delia Deetz (Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O’Hara), who move in with Charles’s moody teenage daughter, Lydia (Ryder). Charles, a businessman, has left New York after some vaguely defined mental breakdown; in his view, small-town life is what will soothe his anxious soul. But not long after moving in, Charles has grand designs to buy up a ton of property to transform Winter River into a tourist destination; Delia, meanwhile, goes about tearing apart the Maitlands’ home and redesigning it with garish, expressionistic decor. And when the Maitlands try to scare off the family during dinner, all the Deetzes see is a business opportunity: Who wouldn’t pay top dollar to be haunted by actual ghosts? As Lydia tells the Maitlands: “My father bought this place. He never walks away from equity.”
The Maitlands aren’t just trying to save the home they held so dear when they were alive; they’re also the only thing standing in the way of the destruction of Winter River’s soul. Beetlejuice playfully explores the dynamic between the living and the dead learning to coexist under one roof, but it’s just as rich a text when viewed through the prism of a working-class community coming under threat from greedy, opportunistic yuppies. Also: Our adolescent anarchist Lydia definitely went on to read some Karl Marx in college.
3. How can you get a job writing for The Afterlife?
I assumed the afterlife in the Beetlejuice-verse(?) would be a morbid affair, but I sure as hell didn’t expect it to be a bureaucratic nightmare. When the Maitlands are struggling to come up with a way to get the Deetzes to leave their home, they find themselves in an otherworldly waiting room that has all the enthusiasm of a DMV. The couple is assigned an overburdened case worker, and it’s implied that anyone who dies by suicide becomes a civil servant in the afterlife. But what I really want to know is what qualifications are required to write for The Afterlife, a newspaper that covers everything relevant to the undead:
I have many thoughts. Are journalists who die immediately assigned to work for The Afterlife? Do they have to take an editing test? Are deadlines just as stressful to deal with after death? Does an undead publication ever face layoffs, or a dreaded “pivot to video”? Considering the current state of journalism, I just want to keep my options open in the next life.
4. Is this movie Hellraiser for kids?
I’m stating the obvious here, but kids’ programming used to be way more messed up. (Exhibit A: That song in The Brave Little Toaster that’s basically about a bunch of cars awaiting the sweet release of death while chanting “worthless.” I’m now too guilt-ridden to throw out old appliances.) But Beetlejuice really does take things to another level in the “inducing childhood trauma” department. The film’s casual implication that all the civil servants in the afterlife probably died by suicide? Well, the secretary who greets the Maitlands in the waiting room appears to be a former Miss Argentina contestant who slashed her wrists. Then there’s this guy, who is pretty chill but also looks like he was the latest victim of Pinhead’s sadomasochism:
In hindsight, I’m really glad I didn’t see this movie until I was old enough to be kicked off my family’s health insurance.
5. Was Betelgeuse Hannibal Lecter before Hannibal Lecter?
I’ve tried to avoid saying his name, but the juice was going to get loose at some point. In an act of desperation, the Maitlands enlist the services of Betelgeuse (Keaton), a self-proclaimed “bio-exorcist” who claims he can help rid them of the Deetzes. (In the afterlife, our guy is essentially a gig worker and markets himself with the kind of panache that would impress Saul Goodman.) But for someone who is the title character of a movie, I was surprised at just how little Betelgeuse appears on-screen. In fact, he isn’t summoned by the Maitlands until the halfway point of the film, and the character has only 17 minutes of screen time.
On the one hand, I would’ve loved to get more of Keaton chewing through scenery—whenever Betelgeuse hijacks the movie, it takes on a chaotic new energy. But Betelgeuse’s limited screen time may be what makes Beetlejuice work so well: He never overstays his welcome. Call it the Hannibal Lecter effect: Anthony Hopkins famously appears in very little of The Silence of the Lambs, yet he looms large over the entire film (and won an Oscar for his troubles). Besides, if Betelgeuse were on-screen any longer, I’m not sure the movie could’ve held on to its PG rating.
6. How is Betelgeuse the least problematic male lead of the movie?
Once Betelgeuse is summoned, he immediately shows his true colors as an absolute creep. He forcibly kisses Barbara when they first meet before trying to look up her dress. He pantomimes jacking off (again, it’s incredible this movie is rated PG). To sow chaos in the mortal world, he becomes really into the idea of making Lydia his child bride. To quote Ringer contributor Adam Nayman, Betelgeuse is “a cross between an improv comic and a Times Square pervert.”
But Betelgeuse’s fictional rap sheet is one thing; the real-life behavior of Keaton’s costars is genuinely deplorable. Alec Baldwin has a litany of scandals spanning decades, ranging from homophobic slurs to now-dismissed charges of involuntary manslaughter (which may be reopened), while Jeffrey Jones is a registered sex offender. (In case you were wondering why Charles Deetz is dead by the start of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.) Thankfully, the closest thing to a scandal surrounding the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice cast is that Justin Theroux and Willem Dafoe have previously made headlines for being [clears throat] well-endowed.
This is not what I expected to write about when I pitched a blog about Beetlejuice.
7. Why is Beetlejuice obsessed with Harry Belafonte?
I watched the first teaser trailer for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice months ago, and I was more than a little confused when it used a spooky cover of the Jamaican folk song “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song).” Sad covers in movie trailers have become an epidemic, so my best guess was that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was jumping on a trend. Of course, now I understand the significance: Harry Belafonte’s version of “Day-O” plays a major role in Beetlejuice’s most memorable scene, when the Deetzes and their dinner guests are possessed by the Maitlands and perform a whole song-and-dance number against their will. (This gave me fond memories of The Mask’s “Cuban Pete” sequence, which is when cinema peaked. Come to think of it, the Mask and Betelgeuse would really hit it off.)
Belafonte’s cover of “Jump in the Line (Shake, Señora)” is also used at the end of the movie, which was another curious choice. At this point, I assumed there was a grander meaning to Beetlejuice’s embrace of Belafonte covers; alas, the real reason the singer featured so prominently is because the songs were easy (and cheap) to license. Not the flashiest reveal, but who among us can’t relate to getting creative on a tight budget? Besides, Belafonte and Beetlejuice worked together like gangbusters.
8. Does Beetlejuice make the greatest case for practical effects over CGI?
Beetlejuice preceded The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and Jurassic Park—three blockbusters that pioneered the early use of CGI. (In each of those movies, the special effects have aged remarkably well.) Now, I’m not saying CGI is inherently bad, but these days, many blockbusters rely too much on the technology—and the industry’s overworked VFX artists—and the underwhelming results speak for themselves. (Sticking to the past two years, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, The Flash, and Argylle are some of the ugliest films I’ve ever seen.) All of which to say: Beetlejuice’s practical effects were a breath of fresh air. I just loved being immersed in this world. The kooky production design is a wonder to behold, as is the film’s Oscar-winning makeup—especially for its cast of undead oddities. This might be the most Tim Burton–ass hallway to ever exist:
In the 21st century, however, even Burton has gone overboard on CGI: His soulless Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptations look like garish screen savers. Thankfully, Burton reportedly went back to basics with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, once again embracing practical effects to build out the world. “The one thing that [Burton] and I decided on early, early, early on from the beginning, if we ever did it again, I was totally not interested in doing something where there was too much technology,” Keaton told People in February. “It had to feel handmade. … When you get to do that again after years of standing in front of a giant screen, pretending somebody’s across the way from you, this is just enormous fun.” This is the way.
9. I repeat: How on earth was Beetlejuice rated PG?
I mean …
10. Did Betelgeuse casually murder a businessman and his wife?
After Charles has his epiphany that Winter River could be transformed into a supernatural tourist attraction, he invites his boss Maxie Dean (Robert Goulet) to visit the town with his wife, Sarah (Maree Cheatham). To sell Maxie on his vision, Charles enlists interior designer and amateur dabbler in the occult Otho Fenlock (Glenn Shadix) to summon the Maitlands in a séance. Instead, Otho inadvertently performs an exorcism that leads Adam’s and Barbara’s physical forms to slowly decay; a sort of “death after death” situation. To save the Maitlands, Lydia summons Betelgeuse, who wastes little time terrorizing the mortals. Most memorably, he sends Maxie and Sarah flying through the ceiling of the Deetzes’ living room, courtesy of a makeshift carnival strongman attraction:
A couple of things: One, we never see the couple again, and I’m pretty sure nobody would survive getting ejected like a fighter pilot through flooring, and two, this would make for a great sequel stunt to the Jackass crew using one of these attractions to shoot a golden dildo up Bam Margera’s ass. I can see it now: “Hi, I’m Johnny Knoxville, and this is the Beetlejuice Bell Blaster!”
11. Is Barbara Maitland the real Lisan al Gaib?
Deserts are really having a moment in pop culture: Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Fallout, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (probably a stretch, but Aquaman and an octopus rescue Patrick Wilson from a desert prison, so I’m choosing to include it). But deserts were the furthest thing from my mind going into Beetlejuice, a film that looks like the cinematic equivalent of a Hot Topic sales rack. It was such a pleasant surprise, then, that whenever the Maitlands left the confines of their home, they became deserted (sorry) on what Betelgeuse calls “Saturn,” which is home to … sandworms?!
Truly, what the fuck? I’m getting real Arrakis vibes, but this being a Tim Burton joint, Beetlejuice’s version of the Shai-Hulud resembles a yassified sock puppet. Incredibly, the sandworm also plays a vital role in the climax of the film, during which Barbara crashes through her home riding atop the sandworm before it chows down on Betelgeuse:
She shall know your ways as though born to them …
12. Are the Maitlands better parents to Lydia than the ones who are alive?
In her own words, Lydia is “strange and unusual,” which is exactly the sort of thing a goth teen would say about themselves. (This is also why Lydia believes she’s able to see the Maitlands while the rest of the mortals ignore the couple until they become monetizable.) But my biggest concern for poor Lydia is that her father and stepmom seem a lot more preoccupied with the economic potential of their new home than their daughter’s well-being. The whole movie is essentially a teenager’s cry for help: At one point, Lydia even writes a suicide note because she’d rather hang out in the world of the dead. (Seriously, that PG rating is hanging on by a thread.)
The good news: Even though Adam and Barbara are ghosts, they make for very supportive foster parents. The Maitlands celebrate Lydia getting an A on her math test—and a C in science because she refused to dissect a frog—by using their supernatural powers to levitate her while she dances to the tune of “Jump in the Line (Shake, Señora).” The Deetzes, meanwhile, hear the music and deduce that the math test went well, implying they actually give a shit about Lydia. In its own way, Beetlejuice underscores the benefits of being raised in a multi-parent household.
13. Is Beetlejuice Tim Burton’s Apex Mountain?
I had to borrow a phrase from the Podfather here, but it’s worth asking. Burton’s 21st-century output leaves a lot to be desired—big love to Big Fish, though—so the late ’80s and early ’90s are, without question, the filmmaker’s sweet spot. You could make a compelling case that Beetlejuice is Burton’s best film: It’s eccentric, it’s macabre, and, even after 36 years, it holds plenty of staying power. Then there’s 1989’s Batman, which was a cultural phenomenon that kick-started a superhero movie boom in the ’90s. (Plus, Jack Nicholson is still the best Joker not played by Heath Ledger.)
If you ask me, however, Burton’s Apex Mountain will always be Batman Returns, which is when the filmmaker had far more creative control over the franchise and was cooking with gas. I could bring up Michelle Pfeiffer’s sultry performance as Catwoman, gloomy Gotham’s fascistic architecture, or the film’s darker tone being so disturbing that McDonald’s faced backlash for its Happy Meal tie-ins. Or I could simply share the clip of six emperor penguins leading a funeral procession for the corpse of Danny DeVito’s Oswald Cobblepot, a scene that manages to split the difference between being unabashedly goofy and profoundly moving.
Remember when superhero films were good?
14. Is Beetlejuice Beetlejuice the cinematic event of the second half of 2024?
It’s been a weird year at the movies. Furiosa was a masterpiece … and it bombed. The Fall Guy was a fun time … and it bombed. The First Omen breathed new life into a storied horror franchise … and it didn’t do big numbers. Deadpool & Wolverine became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time … and it’s one of the most creatively bankrupt blockbusters I’ve ever had the displeasure of sitting through. Frankly, with the exception of Dune: Part Two, it’s been rough out there.
Many of the biggest movies still to come out in 2024 don’t inspire confidence, either: Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Wicked, Moana 2, and Mufasa: The Lion King form a cursed slate of holiday tentpoles. (Help us, Gladiator II, you’re our only hope.) But then there’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. The sequel is bringing back Ryder, O’Hara, and Keaton; Burton is doubling down on practical effects; the franchise is adding Jenna Ortega, who’s arguably the most Burton-core young star in Hollywood. All the ingredients are there for the best kind of IP revival—one that’s reliant on the quirky sensibilities of a beloved auteur who could use a win. As for me, I’m grateful to finally know what all the fuss is about with Beetlejuice—and that I didn’t see this movie about pervy demons, greedy yuppies, and Cronenbergian civil servants in the afterlife at a young age. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna crank up the Belafonte.
