Beetlejuice (1988)

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All the people in the waiting room and in the office are in the same condition as when they died and the way they died is shown clearly. However, the Maitlands, who were drowned, are not wet. This was done deliberately since the director felt that keeping the actors wet all the time would be too uncomfortable.


I n the 1988 Tim Burton-directed horror comedy Beetlejuice, actor Michael Keaton portrayed Betelgeuse as a lecherous con-man out to rid of the world of the living through his bio-exorcism. Betelgeuse takes advantage of the naivete of the newly-dead Maitlands, promising to rid their former home of its new occupants, the Deetz family. Betelguese wins the Maitlands' trust, only to betray them in his bid to return to the world of the living by marrying young Lydia Deetz. The Maitlands ultimately defeat Betelgeuse, sending him back to land of the dead for good.

After Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) die in a car accident, they find themselves stuck haunting their country residence, unable to leave the house. When the unbearable Deetzes (Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones) and teen daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) buy the home, the Maitlands attempt to scare them away without success. Their efforts attract Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), a rambunctious spirit whose "help" quickly becomes dangerous for the Maitlands and innocent Lydia.
The original script was a horror film, and featured Beetlejuice as a winged, reptilian demon who transformed into a small Middle Eastern man to interact with the Maitlands and the Deetzes. Lydia was a minor character, with her six year old sister Cathy being the Deetz child able to see the Maitlands. Beetlejuice's goal was to kill the Deetzs, rather than frighten them away, and included sequences where he mauled Cathy in the form of a rabid squirrel and tried to rape Lydia. Subsequent script rewrites turned the film into a comedy and toned down Beetlejuice's character into the ghost of an wise cracking con-artist rather than a demon.