Beetlejuice (1988)

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A couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) dies in a car wreck in their small, New England town. They don't realize that they are dead at first, and eventually must contend with a yuppie family. They manage to befriend the goth teenage daughter (Winona Ryder in what may just be her best role and performance). Desperate to get the family out their house, and save their pristine small-town life, the couple, ignoring warnings form others, seeks help from a sleazy, fast-talking poltergeist, brilliantly portrayed by Michael Keaton. Director Tim Burton really found his niche with Beetlejuice. Keaton as Betelgeuse is a star-making performance, and the man is truly unrecognizable. The set design is outstanding, especially when it comes to sights we are shown in the afterlife. It feels Burton-esque. It's mesmerizing, weird, haunting, and a little funny all at once. I also think the makeup work in this movie is some the best in any movie. Period. I'm not just talking about the dead people looking a different color, or the pale-white look of Winona Ryder as Lydia Deetz, or even Keaton himself. There's also a lot of little touches like the gash on Sylvia Sidney's neck that says her character had had her throat slit. Even some of the smaller characters that you only see once in the movie have such a unique look, you kind of wonder what their story is (a man with a shrunken head and a woman who has been cut in half, for example) The best to way describe Beetlejuice is as something of a demented Looney Tunes cartoon. Keaton's performance sort of seems to be a combination between Bugs Bunny and Freddy Krueger, which works way better than it probably should. This isn't just a good movie to watch around Halloween, it's a movie you can watch pretty much any time of the year. I absolutely love this movie, and highly recommend it if you've never seen it before.  

10 / 10