Beetlejuice

Stream on Amazon Prime

Runtime: 1 Hour and 32 Minutes

Rated PG

Adam and Barbara are the perfect small-town couple who have renovated their old farmhouse just to their liking. Unfortunately, now they are dead and an odd family from New York moves into their dream home. To save their home, and their ghostly sanity, Adam and Barbara need help haunting their home to scare away the new residents. Unfortunately, they choose the wrong ghost to help.

Themes:

Death, afterlife, hauntings, ghosts, remodeling, moving, bio exorcism, possession, handbook for the recently deceased, exercism, stepparents, family, art, me say day o, paranormal activity, suicide, seances, business, marriage, and revenge.

Language:

D*mn - 5 F*ck - 1 Hell - 8 Piss - 1 Sh*t - 1 Religious Exclamations - 11

Name calling such as deadbeats, losers, round boy, etc.

Stuff to be aware of: “Its show time.”

Gore - A woman is hanging from a noose in a closet and rips her face off. Her eyes hang out of their sockets and her skull can be seen. In one scene a headless man’s body is seen on the floor and his wife is near by holding his severed head and a bloody knife. His head talks.

There are several dead individuals in the “waiting room.” Some include a man with a shark on his leg, a woman cut in two (bloody stuff can be seen inside her lower half that is separated), a man with a chicken bone stuck in his throat, person in a sleeping bag with a snake, a hunter with a shrunken head, a burnt up man who is smoking, a woman with slit wrists, a man that is flat with tire marks on him, a man that was in surgery and had a hole in his chest exposing organs, a woman that looks like a mummy/zombie, skeletons, a man hanging by a noose, and a woman with a slit in her throat (she smokes and the vapors come out of the cut). Beetlejuice pulls a severed ring out of his pocket.

Sexual - A woman licks her husband’s nose. Two ghosts make moaning sounds and another person mistakes it for people having sex. A character mentions “sexual perversion,” and how sexual things should be done privately in a bedroom. Beetlejuice pantomimes masturbation. Beetlejuice looks under a woman’s dress by lifting it up with a stick. Beetlejuice grabs his crotch and it makes a honking sound when he does. Beetlejuice looks up a woman’s skirt when he is in snake form. There is a scene where Beetlejuice visits a whore house. There are women with cleavage catcalling him. There is a sign that says, “nude.” In the closing scene, Beetlejuice touches a woman’s leg and tries to look up her skirt, but gets slapped.

Scary - A fire starts by itself. Sandworms in the movie look like giant worms that have a a second worm-like face that comes out of its original face. They are stop-motion and look very Tim Burton-ish. A lost soul’s room includes a creepy-looking zombie ghost. Crazy, gross stuff pops out of Beetlejuice’s face, but you only see the back of his head and little things sticking out the side. Hands that look like shrimp pop out of bowls and grab people’s faces. Beetlejuice turns into a creepy looking snake with his head, (except his eyes are creepy and pupilless). A ghost stretches his face in a weird way and puts eyes on his fingers and another ghost opens and stretches her mouth wide and her eyes show up in her throat. Two ghosts shrivel up and look like zombies during a seance. Some weird-looking statues come alive and restrain two people. There is a short zombie-looking man that performs a wedding ceremony toward the end.

Violence - A couple’s car crashes off and bridge and lands top down in the water killing them.

Other - A woman’s fingers catch on fire and she blows them out. They do not burn. A fly gets eaten off-screen. Suicide is joked about and flippantly discussed. A teen writes a suicide note about jumping off a bridge. Several characters drink and smoke during the movie. A woman has zippers on her lips.

Overall:

This is your typical 80s/90s Tim Burton movie complete with quirky visuals, stop motion, dark humor, and death. It has become a cult classic and Michael Keaton had received much praise for his stint as the “ghost with the most.” This is one that scared me as a child, and there are a lot of adult themes such as suicide and sexual innuendo throughout the movie. This one isn’t for everyone especially children), but those who love it, truly love it.