Beetlejuice, how is the movie from 1988?
| Should you watch Beetlejuice today? How good is it?
Beetlejuice starts with an aerial shot of a whole town, and you will notice the movie is much nicer looking considering when it came out.
The same goes for the effects throughout the movie they are not super realistic like today, but they fit the theme of the movie perfectly and not for a second break the illusion or feel out of place.
We get to know the couple Adam and Barbara Maitland spending their vacation. Yes, Geena Davis is beautiful, and Alec Baldwin has been in movies for so long, you almost didn’t recognize his younger self.
After a little funny car accident, the couple gets home regretting what a bad way to start a vacation. After settling, Adam wonders how they got home and decides to retrace his steps. Just when he steps outside the house, he finds himself in a weird place and almost dying; he immediately steps back into the house through the door.
Barbara says he was gone for hours and shows him the ‘Handbook For The Recently Deceased’. Are we dead? Did we not survive the accident and are stuck in the house?
After some months, the house is sold, and new owners move in from New York. Young goth girl Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), her father Charles (Jeffrey Jones), and stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara).
Delia is unhappy about her husband’s sudden decision to buy the house. She takes out her frustration by remodeling the house with Otho (Glenn Shadix) and showing her ‘art’.
This is where the story begins. Can the ‘newly ghost’ Maitlands drive the new owners away and live peacefully, or do they have to enlist the help of the notorious Betelgeuse, Beetlejuice, Beetle…
Acting is phenomenal in this movie. You might even find it hard to recognize Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice.
The story is thoughtful, and the depiction of the afterlife is good and fun. What kind of body people get after death because of what they did in life and how they died; from that, you can tell they have considered things through.
Ghosts feel like people, with their own problems and world. A glimpse at the newspaper ‘The Afterlife’ shows the vastness of the ghost world. And what business people will do if they find ghosts is super accurate.
When the Maitlands try to scare guests during dinner, it is the most fun scene with “Day-O (Banana Boat Song).” The lighting in the movie will give you that classic feeling.
Final Verdict: A definite one-time watch.
Rating: 7/10
Rated: PG
Length: 1h 32m
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