Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice is a horror comedy in which the ghosts are the protagonists and the living are the infestation, which is a genuinely unusual inversion to sustain for a whole film. Tim Burton's second feature was made cheaply, with deliberately handmade effects — stop motion, forced perspective, latex — at a point when the industry was moving toward slickness, and that visual roughness is now the property's entire aesthetic identity.
About Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice is a horror comedy in which the ghosts are the protagonists and the living are the infestation, which is a genuinely unusual inversion to sustain for a whole film. Tim Burton's second feature was made cheaply, with deliberately handmade effects — stop motion, forced perspective, latex — at a point when the industry was moving toward slickness, and that visual roughness is now the property's entire aesthetic identity. The title character appears for roughly seventeen minutes. Michael Keaton improvised a substantial amount of the performance, and Burton has said the part was written thin on purpose so that whoever played it would have to fill the space. The black-and-white stripes have since become one of the most reproduced patterns in licensed apparel.
The title character is on screen for around seventeen minutes of a ninety-two-minute film.
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Key eras
| Era | Years | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| The film | 1988 | A cheap, handmade horror comedy that became a major hit. |
| Animated series | 1989–1991 | A Saturday-morning cartoon that softened the character considerably. |
| Stage and sequel | 2018– | A Broadway musical, then a long-delayed film sequel. |