This double sided disk is no good. Pick what format you want the first time you watch it, and stick with that side the whole time...because if you switch each time, both sides get scratched! Personally, I think fullscreen is for idiots who think they're getting the whole picture when they're not. You people put no actual thought into making DVDs, you just slap some crap together and think its fine. No, it's not fine! Clean up your acts!


Off-color, Irreverent Hilarity   April 22, 2005
 45 out of 49 found this review helpful

I love this film. Barbara and Adam Maitland, a young couple madly in love (played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) discover that they are not only dead but trapped in their home as ghosts waiting for the bureaucracy of the afterlife to set them free. When a New York couple (Catherine O'Hara and Jeffrey Jones) and their teenage daughter Lydia (wonderfully macabre Winona Ryder) move into their beloved house, the Maitlands want nothing more than to remove them. The problem is, the Maitlands are too nice to truly scare anyone. They meet a rogue ghost, the ribald, disgusting Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) who promises to drive the family away, with a few strings attached. Lydia, whose goals aren't that far from the Maitlands and who has a morbid, poignantly sad outlook, discovers the ghosts and tries to help them. But Beetlejuice has his own agenda.

The casting for this movie is perfect, with only Alec Baldwin's performance less than memorable. Michael Keaton is suitably slimy and decadent, while Geena Davis plays the earnest innocence of her character equally well. The most startling performance is a young Winona Ryder, who shows tremendous range in her role as the morbid but good-hearted Lydia.

One of the most hilarious, dark scenes ever filmed is contained in this movie, when the New York couple throws a pretentious dinner party and the Maitlands take over. Director Tim Burton uses sight gags, situational comedy, and one-liners that all bear his trademark quirkiness to make this film inventive and, even years after its release, fresh. What's most amazing in this film essentially about the weirdness of being dead is the emotional drive of it. The Maitlands' yearning to reclaim their home even in death and Lydia's wounded, lonely adolescence lend humanity to an otherwise wild comedy.

I highly recommend this off-beat film for its hilarity and irreverence. Parents of young children should be warned that the film contains off-color humor as well as images and ideas that might disturb young minds. -- Debbie Lee Wesselmann


Cheesy Reissue   September 19, 2008
 17 out of 19 found this review helpful

My one-star refers to this so-called "20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition" of this hilarious and eye-popping delight from director Tim Burton.

Since the inception of the DVD format, I have been waiting for a proper DVD of Beetlejuice with commentary and special features.

I am sorry to say that this pathetic disc is NOT what I have been waiting for.

Though they supposedly have spruced up the picture, the ONLY special features are three Beetlejuice cartoons and I think some music track or something.

NO commentary, NO behind-the-scenes, NO nothing.

So -- NO sale.

I'm still waiting...


Say it once, say it twice, third time's the charm!   November 21, 2002
 16 out of 16 found this review helpful

When this movie first came out about fifteen years ago, my father owned a video store and every Wednesday night was "Beetlejuice" night. I'm older now, obviously, but I still cannot get enough of this movie.

Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis play Adam and Barbara Maitland, two Connecticut yuppies who die prematurely in a car wreck. Within a couple weeks, their home is overrun by an ultra-trendy New York City family, Charles and Delia Deetz, and their Goth daughter, Lydia (played respectively by Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O'Hara, and Winona Ryder). Adam and Barbara want their house back, and attempt to scare the Deetz's out of the house by wearing sheets and even by possessing them over dinner, making them sing and dance to Harry Belafonte's "Day O." Those attempts fail and enter Michael Keaton as Betelguese, "the afterlife's leading freelance bio-exorcist." The movie is dark without being scary and funny without being ridiculous.

In my opinion, one of the real gems in this film is the late Sylvia Sidney as Juno, Your Case Worker. Sidney was pushing eighty when this film was made, but turns in a great performance as the embittered equivalent of an afterlife social worker. Love how the smoke from her ever-present cigarette comes out of the slit in her throat.

If you've never seen this movie, see it. If you have seen it but don't own it on DVD, get it. The picture quality is better than ever.


Some early details about the new Blu-ray DVD due out September 16th, 2008   June 19, 2008
 10 out of 14 found this review helpful

Beetlejuice is a very Tim Burtonesque Tim Burton movie, establishing his fascination with the macabre and, especially in this case, the funny, campy side of death and horror. It's the story of a newly dead couple (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) who are essentially stuck as ghosts in their house, and don't like its new owners (parents Jeffrey Jones and Catherine O'Hara and daughter Winona Ryder). They enlist the help of a more experienced, half-crazy but very insistent ghost, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), in an effort to scare the new owners away by haunting them. Beetlejuice turns out to have his own agenda, and alliances shift as the story winds through learning to be dead, afterlife bureaucracy, wild chases through small spaces, Calypso dancing at dinner to Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song" ("Day-O"), a very goth wedding ceremony, and supernatural comeuppance.

The cast, for the most part, is perfectly suited to the wacky material, the sets and make-up and other effects very imaginative, the story engaging. Great fun.

The extras announced are very limited: three episodes of the Saturday morning Beetlejuice cartoon series ("Skeletons in the Closet," "Spooky Boo-tique," "A-Ha!"), a music-only track, the trailer and, according to the press release but not the Warners Brothers web page for this DVD, an exclusive CD soundtrack sampler. The cartoons are about 11 minutes each. Possibly more features will be announced later, but that would be unusual and I wouldn't count on it. Five-star movie, three-star extras.

The new Blu-ray will be 1080p video, but the complete specs for the sound haven't been announced. There will be sound and subtitles in several languages, including Spanish. The old standard DVD isn't all that great in terms of video quality, so the best thing about this new release is likely to be improved image and sound.