INNOVATIVE 'BEETLEJUICE' TWEAKS GHOST TALES DELICIOUSLY

By Bill Hagen

From The San Diego Union-Tribune, 04.13.1988

Funny what happened to Adam and Barbara Maitland, a really nice young couple. They died.

Funny? In Beetlejuice, a macabre comedy in which even death is no escape from the living, what happens to the Maitlands is often downright hilarious.

At the heart--or, perhaps, soul--of Beetlejuice are a couple of decidedly quirky talents, director Tim Burton and actor Michael Keaton, who as the title character has probably his best movie role since Night Shift.

Burton, working with a screenplay by Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren-- the original story, and it is indeed original, is by McDowell and Larry Wilson --deliciously twists and tweaks ghost stories ranging from Thorne Smith to Stephen King, from Topper to The Shining. And Keaton, as a crude, raunchy bio-exorcist reduced to a late-night television pitchman on a ghostly network, is unabashedly outrageous.

Events get under way when Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis), happily restoring a remote but grand old house in a small town in New England, make an ill-timed visit to town and, returning home, swerve their car off a bridge to avoid hitting a dog. Not a day-making incident, of course, but soon enough the Maitlands are back in their beloved house, apparently none the worse.

But there are subtle suggestions that something is different. For one, there's a very old but new book on a table. "Handbook for the Recently Diseased," is how Adam reads it at a cursory glance.

"That's 'deceased,'" Barbara points out.

And then there's another peculiarity. The Maitlands don't reflect in mirrors. And when they try to leave the house they step into a kind of lunarscape inhabited by vile monsters. Yes, they conclude, they're dead, all right. At least they're still in their own house, so it could be worse.

It will be worse. Much worse. The real trouble begins with the arrival of the new owners of the house, Charles (Jeffrey Jones) and Delia (Catherine O'Hara) Deetz and their daughter, Lydia (Winona Ryder), a strange child who looks and acts like the lifetime president of the Elvira Fan Club. Charles is a frazzled New York businessman. Delia, who rarely does anything without the advice of her obnoxiously haughty interior decorator, Otho (Glenn Shadix), is, in addition to being a pretentious snob and social climber, one of the world's worst sculptors. Anyhow, Delia and Otho agree that the best thing to be done with the splendid, 150-year-old house is to gut it and start over.

Over the Maitlands' dead bodies, they will.

What the Maitlands have to do, then, is force the Deetzes to leave, which shouldn't be a major problem for ghosts. Scare them out. But, as they learn, it's going to take more than the old gliding-about-draped-in-sheets trick. For one thing, only Lydia can see them. For another, ghosts have become very chic, maybe even profitable, with trendy Manhattanites.

The Maitlands definitely need help with the haunting and, despite warnings from other spirits, they summon Beetlejuice from his miniaturized exile. Lord, what a vile creature he is. Lecherous, devious, duplicitous, profane. In another life a politician, perhaps. But despite his grossness and his methods, Beetlejuice is also effective, so probably not.

Anyhow, Burton and his cast have great fun with this bizarre comedy, which comes complete with gory but funny special and visual effects and scary, sprightly music by Danny Elfman, all of which are deliberately exaggerated.

Keaton pulls out all stops as the title character and proves once again that, with the right material, he's a top-flight comedy actor. Someone in a position to capitalize on it is going to realize one day that Davis, too, is exceptional at comedy.

Baldwin, too, does very well as the more practical, sensible Adam. Shadix is wonderfully vain and pompous as the decorator. O'Hara is delightful as the snobbish, stupid wife, as is Ryder as the unusual daughter. Jones helps any movie in which he appears. And Sylvia Sidney is terrific as the Maitlands' case worker and Beetlejuice's former boss.

Burton livens up his movie, which he has called "a comic version of The Exorcist--from the dead people's point of view," with such glorious scenes as an inspired, as it were, version of the song "Day-O" and the Maitlands first visit to the administration office for the deceased, which shows that even death is no escape from bureaucracy and paper work.

The fun is practically non-stop in this strange, zany comedy.