Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice! A Tim Burton classic.

Beetlejuice has been one of my favorite movies for a long time. It was released in 1988, one year after I was born. I remember watching it a long time ago, but just like with other old time favorite movies, they’re funnier when you can actually understand them. I’ve watched this movie many times since then and it never gets old. I’m a big fan of Michael Keaton and Alec Baldwin. I love the fact that despite the perverted remarks and gestures, the movie is still rated PG so it must be perfect for children!

Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) lived the perfect life and loved their oversized home. After an unexpected accident that caused the Maitlands to drown, their ghosts return to their house. They soon realize they died and find a book entitled “Handbook for the recently deceased” that guides them through the afterlife. A new family moves in rather quickly and the Maitlands want to scare them away so they can keep their beloved house. They try to scare the new family away by dressing up in shirts and such but their bland techniques just won’t work. The couple find themselves dumbfounded and can’t find a way to scare the family off. So they finally decide to read the book and it tells them to draw a door, which then takes them to the afterlife where their caseworker “Juno” steers them in the right direction.

The Maitlands return to their house and try their new scare tactics but they still won’t work on the Deetz’s (the family that moved in). Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is able to see the ghosts of the Maitlands because she read their book and decides to try to help and protect them. Barabara and Adam run out of ideas to get rid of the Deetz’s so they decide to go to their last resort… Beetlejuice. The highly proclaimed “bio-excorcist” swears that he can scare the living. Beetlejuice only makes things worse for the Maitlands.

The Deetz’s interior decorator,  Otho, gets a hold of the handbook and during a seance, manages to summon up the Maitlands and this causes Lydia to contact Beetlejuice for help under one condition, that he and Lydia marry after he saves the Maitlands. Like always, Beetlejuice manages to stir things up and cause havoc among the living and dead. Long story short, Beetlejuice is sent to the afterlife and the Maitlands end up sharing their home with the Deetz’s after reconciling their differences.

For only $8.50 for the DVD or $10.50 for the blu-ray at amazon, you can’t go wrong.