Beetlejuice

  • Review Date: April 17, 2005
  • PG
  • Genre: Comedy
  • 1988
 Review

Common Sense Media says

Early Tim Burton is creepy, dark fun for tweens and teens.
greenON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
yellowPAUSE: Know your child; some content
may not be right for some kids.
redOFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
not for kidsNOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age.

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Quality
 
Sometimes media can be age appropriate but a real waste of time. Our star rating assesses the media's overall quality.

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Parents say

Kids say

What parents need to know

Parents need to know that there are some serious themes in this outrageous film: a young married couple comes to grips with the fact that they're dead, and a teenager contemplates suicide. Because of this, it's not suitable for children younger than 9. But there's nothing here that older kids can't laugh at.

  • The characters eventually learn to live together peacefully but this is more ancedotal than a deliberate positive message.
  • Beetlejuice is rude, crude and dirty. Lydia is depressed and occasionally suicidal. Barbara and Adam are good people understandably unhappy in their situation.
  • A woman blows cigarette smoke out of her slit throat. An afterlife waiting room abounds with people in various states of deadness (but it's more funny than scary). Main characters are chased by giant striped worms in a desert. A teen shrivels up like a mummy in a matter of seconds. The teen also contemplates suicide.
  • A miniature Beetlejuice finds a whorehouse in a model-sized city; some women invite him inside.

What's the story?

Swerving to miss a dog in the road, Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) drive off a bridge into a river. Arriving back home, they realize that not only are they dead, they're trapped in a sort of limbo in their own house. The cryptic "Handbook for the Recently Deceased" they've been left with offers little guidance. When a new family moves in and assertive Delia Deitz (Catherine O'Hara) starts remodeling, the ghosts decide they want them out. Their attempts to scare off the new inhabitants fail miserably, though. The only one who can see them is terminally morose Lydia (Winona Ryder), the Deitz's teen daughter. Sympathizing with the Maitlands' predicament, she summons Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), "the afterlife's leading bio-exorcist," to their aid. It doesn't take her long to regret the decision.


Is it any good?

 

Tim Burton has an abnormal talent for capturing morbid, cartoonish imagery onscreen. There were glimpses of that sensibility in his grandly peculiar first feature, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, but that was only a teaser. In his follow-up feature, BEETLEJUICE, a wild burlesque of a movie, Burton lets all of his snakes out of the bag. The wriggliest of those snakes is Beetlejuice himself. Played by Michael Keaton, he's a scum-covered, bug-eating ghoul dressed in something akin to a soiled umpire's uniform. Kids and adults alike will find it hard to resist him. Keaton gives such pungent life to the title character, and to the movie as a whole, that it's no wonder Burton defied Hollywood logic and cast him as the unlikely star of his next film, Batman, and the grittier Batman Returns.

A few other things you'll see in this movie that you won't see anywhere else include a room where the recently deceased mingle while waiting to see their afterlife case workers, and Dick Cavett and company dancing as puppets of the supernatural to Harry Belafonte's "Day-O."


Explore, discuss, enjoy

  • Families can talk about why Lydia was so sad. How did she deal with it, and was her way of coping effective? How do you deal with it when you're sad?

  • Also, what do you think of this bizarre take on the afterlife? What other movie depictions can you think of? Which is the most outlandish?


This review of Beetlejuice was written by
Parent of 10 and 17 year old
March 13, 2009
 
great movie but a lot more than the review says
great, witty, and entertaining movie. i only take issue with the inaccurate description provided by common sense. there are several sexual references ("sexual perverts" and moaning mistaken as active sex by teenager for two examples). there's a lot of swearing - s**t, god d*** (many of this), hell (not just as the place), and one f***. there are some very, though comic in context, scary images (face ripped off, bloody toothed monster, people cut in half, etc). there are also many (8) references to suicide. it's just for an older crowd than 9 years old.

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Teen, 13 years old
March 26, 2011
 
a halloween movie made for mature audiences
Beetlejuice swears a lot. While first meeting two of his customers which are the main charecters he quickly touches the woman while her husbands not looking. She later calls him a p*rvert. The ghost-couple try to scare another couple by woo-ing and moaning, and the daughter thinks thier having you-know-what and tells them to keep it down. A woman smokes a ciggerate, and the smoke from it comes disgustingly out a slit in her throat
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Kid, 10 years old
October 27, 2010
 
A favorite
One of my favorite movies I saw it one night on tv and i saw it on netflix it is a awsome movie I love Tim Burton . This movie is a little inappropreate for little kids. But kids ages 8+ will be able to watch it. If you don't mind creepy things you are good to go. Good for a Halloween movie marathon.
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Kid, 8 years old
July 3, 2010
 
Beetlejuice,Beetlejuice,Beetlejuice!
This movie rocks!
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Parent of 10 year old
April 9, 2008
 
Not good for young kids
Because this was rated PG, I got it for my 11 and 8 year old. It was really not right for them at all and my husband and I couldn't believe the PG rating. I did not enjoy watching this with my kids one bit.

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Teen, 14 years old
February 15, 2011
 
Suggested MPAA Rating: PG-13 for disturbing content/images, sexuality, brief strong language, and for violence.
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Parent of 4, 4, 7, and 10 year old
May 6, 2010
 
Good for tweens and up
We really like this classic from way back when! It's a little disgusting, very funny, but too disturbing for younger kids. They will miss the humor and only be scared or disturbed by it, and they will not understand, nor should they be introduced to the recurrent images and ideas surrounding suicide. There are also several language issues that we had forgotten about until we were already watching it with our 10 and 7 year old( One utterance of F**k and several other less potent swear words). Our 7 year old should not have been watching it!
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Teen, 13 years old
June 25, 2011
 
The most hilarious horror-comedy ever; perfect for Halloween. On the other hand, this is far too much for a PG rating, even for 1988, because younger kids won't understand the humor and will only be scared. An absolute must-see for audiences that can handle.
My rating: PG-13 for frequent black humor involving creepy images/frightening scenes, brief smoking and some language. [NOTE: This film, like a few other 80's films (i.e. Spaceballs, Big) pushes the PG to the extremes. It has one F bomb used, but unlike the two listed films, it has a creepy sensation that could give kids nightmares--I really thought they stopped giving creepy movies PG ratings in the late 1970's or the early 1980's.]
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Teen, 13 years old
December 30, 2009
 
scary for younger kids
this movie is great. yes, there are some parts that will scare younger kids, such as a woman ripping off her face and her eyeballs popping out, and beetlejuice turning into a snake and throwing people around the room. yes it does say f***ing, which surprised me because it was a pg movie. if you dont want your child to hear that, cover their ears when beetlejuice kicks over a tree. overall a fun and entertaining movie.
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Parent of 5 and 10 year old
May 7, 2010
 
Parents need to know that there are several swear words in this movie including the F word- almost all spoken by the crude Beetlejuice character. He grabs himself in several lewd ways, makes constant, indecent and inappropriate advances and comments towards another man's wife and at one point enters a whore house where scantily clad women awaited. I was watching this with my 10 year old daughter and was shocked to the point of turning it off. I would not recommend it for any age.
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This review of Beetlejuice was written by
Topics:monsters, ghosts, and vampires
Studio:Warner Bros.
Director:Tim Burton
Cast:Geena Davis, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder
Genre:Comedy
Run time:92 minutes
Theatrical release date:March 30, 1988
DVD release date:June 25, 1997
MPAA rating:PG

This review of Beetlejuice was written by
 

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