30 years later and Beetlejuice is still the ghost with the most

As a pop culture staple and rite of passage for three generations, Beetlejuice turns 30 and is still as important and relevant as ever.

It seem completely unbelievable (to some of us, anyway) but Beetlejuice turns 30 this week. The Tim Burton classic debuted March 30, 1988, and is still one of the most important films in pop culture.

Beetlejuice was mostly well-received when it first premiered. Yet no one could have predicted its continued impact on the modern movie canon, not to mention it’s sheer staying power in the minds and hearts of three generations. How many other 30-year-old movies still routinely and ubiquitously show up at Halloween?

30 years out and Beetlejuice still holds up as one of Tim Burton’s finest, and most fully realized films to date. In fact, (if you don’t count Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) it was Burton’s breakout role, establishing him as the gothic prince that he is. (More on that later). Although he’s made other films, Beetlejuice paved the way for him to direct a few Batman movies. Plus, if you really want to look hard at the Burton collection, Beetlegeuse, the character, is just a bizarro Edward Scissorhands.

Beetlejuice the movie was the zeitgeist that created the Tim Burton-era. An era, I’ll note, that is still going strong today. We must appreciate Beetlejuice for the trailblazer that it is. Here are a few reasons why we love our pinstriped icon, our gloomy girl Lydia and more.

The metaphor holds up

By metaphor, of course I mean Beetlejuice’s not-so-subtle dig at the mundanity of life, and in this case, death. The Maitlands, pre-death, are a quiet couple, enjoying their sleepy little town in which they own a quaint hardware store. Although, by some standards (particularly the Deetzes), they live a boring and lifeless existence.

This is completely subverted, however, when they die in the first eight minutes of the movie. They’re sent to an afterlife that is imagined as an interminable waiting room literally from Hell. There are no singing angels on fluffy clouds or pearly white gates, just an endless line of poor schlubs, waiting their turn. It is the epitome of boring and lifeless.

It’s hard not to contrast the Maitlands “real life” with this strange version of purgatory. But it becomes increasingly obvious that Beetlejuice is asking audiences to consider the humdrum situations of everyday life. Translating scenes of one’s usual day through a horrific and surrealistic lens becomes a tool to comment on the drudgery we must endure.

Production designer Bo Welch described the set design as thus: “Conceptually, I think we arrived at that [the afterlife] would be kind of like going into the department of motor vehicles or some other dreary government office or the unemployment office. That’s what inspired the afterlife where he goes in and gets the number and it’s just chaos and decay. So, it’s the department of motor vehicles filtered through a German expressionistic lens.”

It’s a postmodern masterpiece

Everything about this movie screams postmodern. It kills the main characters in the first sequence of the movie, and we only see the title character for a total of 17 minutes. Genius.

In a moment in time when John Hughes movies were filtering American life through a gauzy and editorialized lens, Beetlejuice was bearing down on the weird and unexplored. By no means the only postmodern piece of it’s time, it is one of the most interesting and exotic contributions to the movement.

What is most remarkable, however, about this postmodern film is its satire of postmodernism in the characters of Charles and Lydia Deetz. Just as Beetlejuice is serving up every delicious morsel of postmodernity, it’s also coming hard for the very ideals of the movement. Namely, in the monstrosity of a redesign that is meant to capture the postmodern architecture of the time.

As a way to “haunt” the Deetz, Adam and Barbara literally use the design against them, reaffirming the idea that this postmodern aesthetic is only for the rich, vapid and silly. When you contrast that with Adam and Barbara’s simple, rustic tastes, Beetlejuice is making a statement about postmodernism in a real way. How very meta of Tim Burton to use postmodernism to mock postmodernism.

It totally subverts genre

What even is Beetlejuice? Is it horror? Is it comedy? Is it a meditation on humanity through the lens of good and evil? The short answer is yes. It’s all those things.

Its genre-bending structure is among one of Beetlejuice‘s most beguiling qualities. Although it’s positioned as a comedy, playing almost every plot point for laughs, there are still some really scary and dark moments.

Of course Michael Keaton treats Beetlejuice as the sardonic comic relief, and the Deetzes come-uppance is cause for us all to cheer. The film’s wit transcends what we expect from a horror movie, but it’s easy to disregard its gore and terror.

Ortho’s seance is an example of such a mash-up. Sure, we’re meant to laugh at the Maitlands’ undead predicament. Still, it’s very unsettling to see these two squeaky-clean suburbanites resurrected, decaying in their wedding clothes.

Let’s also not forget Lydia’s existential crisis, in which she actually contemplates suicide. We’re supposed to view it as the hyperbolic ennui of a melodramatic teenager. But folks, IT IS A SUICIDE NOTE. That’s really dark. I can’t imagine that the film or its director and writers were asking us to view this as comical.

Lydia brings Goth to the American mainstream

This might seem like a visual throw-away, but the Gothic lifestyle and aesthetic didn’t really show up in America until the mid-’80s. Capitalizing on a niche subculture, Lydia’s all-black wardrobe and pale face for Beetlejuice helped solidify Goth in American pop culture.

Lydia became a mainstream Goth heroine, strongly adding to an underrated cultural movement. In fact, what we know as the “emo” aesthetic is a direct descendent of Lydia’s dark vibes.

In fact, in terms of the American Gothic in general, Beetlejuice was a catalyst for this genre of film (and literature) to reach widespread audiences. Flannery O’Connor would be proud. The film mixes the tongue-in-cheek treatment of outsiders with a true contemplation on the nature of loneliness and isolation. It was groundbreaking, and remains so to this day.

As Beetlejuice turns 30, here’s a few things you might not know about the cult classic:

Tim Burton originally wanted Sammie Davis, Jr. to play the title role
The name of the film (and Keaton’s character) comes from a star constellation called Alpha Orinios. Financial backers thought this might be too complicated for fans. We’re so lucky they didn’t go with the other title, Scared Sheetless.
The film won an Oscar for Best Makeup
It spawned a VERY popular animated spinoff that ran from 1989 to 1992.

On the 30th anniversary of this classic, leave us your fondest memories of the film.

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