Being weird has never felt as good as Burton’s creepy cult classic

1988s Beetlejuice May not be Tim Burton’s first movie, but it was the project that truly launched him as a bold, funny and creative voice in Hollywood. He was – and is – a voice for counter culture with great affection for mainstream pop culture, whose work is challenging, meta and nostalgic, and who found in Michael Keaton a perfect muse.

They don’t make films like that Beetlejuice More, but then they don’t make filmmakers like Tim Burton either. Flicking through his art collections, Burton’s characters – often sketched with frenetic energy – already feel recognizable. Unlike directors who work to stylistic mandates and franchise playbooks, Burton’s movies are best when he’s allowed to be himself, and Beetlejuice Absolutely fits that criteria.

What is more impressive, on this front, is that Burton did not write Beetlejuice. In stark contrast to the later projects where he tried to apply his darker style to reimaginings of existing IPs (like Dumbo And Alice in Wonderland in particular), though, Beetlejuice Feels unrestrained. That it came right before he did Batman (although that hiring actually came first), is still shocking: a fitting win for counter culture.

Michael Keaton has never been better than Beetlejuice

He’s only on screen for 17 minutes, but what an impact

Keaton’s performance as Betelgeuse is ridiculous, explosive and outrageous. He is a shock jack, a non-PC comedian, and a lash, ostracized even by the death community for being too much. Keaton brings a physicality that almost defies belief when you watch him in straighter work as his Bruce Wayne: he seems to manifest a punch out of nowhere, and there’s never been a movie performance you can smell quite as much as Betelgeuse.

The Supernatural Exorcist is itself a commentary: the nightmarish end result that comes with non-conformity at an extreme point. Ironically, of course, he also craves normalcy (hence his desire to marry Lydia), but his radar for how to appropriately achieve it is completely broken. Betelgeuse is a parable of what Lydia could become or what any of us could, if we only stopped caring.

This is the genius of Burton’s creation and Keaton’s performance: Betelgeuse is somehow lovable. He ticks all the boxes that should make him utterly despised, and modern criticism focuses on his problematic nature, but that is precisely the essence of him.

But the cast of Beetlejuice is more than just Michael Keaton

Every actor is on point with Winona Ryder a stand out

With so many years, it’s easy to forget how excellent both Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis were as the tragic Maitlands, Adam and Barbara. The combination of Michael Keaton’s tremendous performance and Winona Ryder’s modest, melancholic Lydia vacuum so much of the attention that they shrink a little in memory. When they rewatched it now, they are the key to the entire movie work, and actually, the sequel is poorer for their absence.

Ryder’s performance is gentle and very subtle: she nails the gothic malice, draped in funeral dress, without fully stepping into the counter culture storm of something like Ghost World Or The Force. She is not bullied in her position, she seems to actively choose her “strange and unusual” armor for herself, and Ryder makes it completely believable. If you grew up loving the films or music Burton Likes, you’ve met a Lydia. You’ve probably met some.

In the supporting cast, there are equally excellent performances: Jeffrey Jones is very good; cAtherine O’Hara is a revelation of artistic neurosis; And Glenn Shaddix is ​​a delight as the reprehensible Otto. Watching them especially during the musical dinner sequence is one of BeetlejuiceIt’s many highlights.

Beetlejuice feels like Burton’s personal expression

This is where the director’s playbook is written

Beetlejuice Still feels like the movie that most expresses Tim Burton as a filmmaker and storytellerWhich is probably why it feels like the project he had the most fun directing. After the knowing meta, but innocent spirit of Play Pee-wee’s Big Adventure 3 years later, this is also true expression of Burtoncore film. You don’t have to look hard to find most of his trademarks in some fashion, in strokes both broad and very specific.

Watching his gothic suburban stories back, It is so obvious that Burton grew up as an outsider in the California suburbs. Lydia is his stand-in: defiant and unusual, but also caught in a conflict between suburban comfort and her difference. Both are genuine, but their balance needs to be worked on, and it’s usually the darker elements that come off worse.

Looking at Lydia, you would assume that her people would be Bedlegs and the other members of Burton’s grotesque carnival, but she is drawn to the cozy suburbanism of the Maitlands. It feels like Burton expressing his own comfort in Hollywood: He’s someone who should be making more Ed Wood-like movies, but instead, he’s much more suited to Populating worlds familiar from Hollywood traditions and tropes with friendly ghosts and ghouls.

Burton’s fun in Beetlejuice It comes from putting things together and finding very strange connections and how perverse the reactions can be in the most surprising ways. Edward Scissorhands It seems to be about the invasion of suburbia by a monster, but in fact it is about a strange boy trying to find his place in a monstrous community. Beetlejuice is similarly coded: it’s not just a haunting, it’s about Lydia finding her home.

Beetlejuice still hits all the right notes

Burton’s Cult Classic United a community and not just an audience

Like much of Burton’s work, Beetlejuice is an anthem to non-conformity. But because this creative universe is told from Burton’s perspective, it is actually the most traditionally “normal” people who are the most abnormal. Lydia Detz is a self-confessed weirdo, gothic and reclusive, she is among the least eccentric of BeetlejuiceIt’s kind of weird.

Interestingly, it is the Maitlands who are the least funny in a ghost story that positions them as unnatural abominations. In fact, it is the Maitlands who are haunted, by the creeping politicization of gentrification by the Deets. Then, on the other side of their conflict sits Betelgeuse, an exploitative snake oil salesman with diabolical fine print. Look hard enough and there is commentary on late-stage Reaganism, displacement, gentrification and pastoral anxiety, and the subjective nature of art.

That may seem like unnecessary navel-gazing, however It is important to help understand how Beetlejuice became a cultural phenomenon beyond its own borders. In Lydia and the Maitlands, people found themselves reflected, both on the surface and in deeper ideological strings. Burton also captured something few talk about in counter culture circles: the symbiotic relationship between normal-appearing people and their gay best friends.

How Beetlejuice holds up decades later

It’s still as fun to watch as it was back in 1988

The Special effects may not be incredibly glossy by 2024 standards, But they are more magical thanks to the use of stop-motion. And the rough edges feel like a truer expression of Burton’s lively sketchbook. After all, otherworldly does not mean flawless.

What’s striking with Beetlejuice is how close the art design feels to Burton’s own sketches. Characters emerge – particularly in the afterlife sequences – that are realized entirely from Burton’s twisted imagination. The sequel went on, but the director’s place for the macabre was shown here. They take up little screen time, but the shrunken-headed hunter, the road cool man, and chain-smoking caseworker Juno are memorable well beyond their immediate impact.

It’s not a particularly scary movie, but Burton never ventures that far into horror territory. instead, Beetlejuice is strange and unsettling, but everything that is presented as strange tends to be consciously made secular. Maitland’s experience of the dead world is a government-like agency, the dead have jobs, and even Betelgeuse is subject to rules. There is a banal order even in the most extraordinary things. That’s why Beetlejuice is – and will remain – one of the weirdest comfort movies ever made.