BEETLEJUICE

BEETLEJUICE feels like the moment Tim Burton stopped being a promising young director and became Tim Burton. Before this came PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE. After this came BATMAN, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, and one of the most distinctive careers in modern American cinema. Watching BEETLEJUICE today, you can see so many of Burton's obsessions arriving fully formed. The gothic architecture. The suburban absurdity. The affection for outsiders, weirdos, and misfits. Perhaps most importantly, the belief that the afterlife might be far more entertaining than ordinary life.

The story begins when a recently deceased couple discover they are trapped inside their own home while an aggressively normal family moves in and starts redecorating. Desperate to get rid of the new occupants, they seek help from a freelance "exorcist" named Beetlejuice. Unsurprisingly, this turns out to be a terrible idea.

What I love about the film is how inventive it remains. The afterlife isn't presented as a place of grandeur or terror. It's a bureaucracy. A maze of waiting rooms, paperwork, civil servants, and administrative headaches. Somehow Burton manages to make death feel both funny and strangely familiar.

Michael Keaton rightfully receives most of the attention, but I've always had a soft spot for the rest of the cast. Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis bring genuine warmth to the film, while Winona Ryder's Lydia remains one of the defining outsider characters of 1980s cinema. Then there's Catherine O'Hara, who somehow steals every scene she's in. Her performance is so perfectly pitched that she manages to make complete narcissism look oddly lovable.