Beetlejuice

Odd as it may sound the word is the title of a movie released in 1985. It was way back when I was studying class 5 that I saw a poster of the movie and I could make neither head or tail out of it then. The other day I was looking at the bio of Danny Elfmann and read that it was one of his earliest movies which saw the duo of Danny Elfmann and Director Tim Burton come together. And then I decided to search for it and thanks again to p2p network someone out there did keep the movie in share.

So what is the movie all about. Its about a "recently deceased" couple, the Maitlands who turn into ghosts and haunt their country house. The Deedz move in. The Maitlands begin their term as ghosts trying to scare them away and make their trips between a funny looking heaven and their haunted house. They are commanded by their legal counsel (Yes, you got that right - their lawyer for the judgement day) to get back the ghosts manual that accidentally falls into the hands of the Deedz kid! The Maitlands try lots of not-so "scary" haunting stunts that fail to throw the Deedz family out of the house. So they enlist the help of a bio-exorcist "Beetleguese" (Pronounced - Beetle Juice) for scaring them away who has his own agenda which makes things complicated.

The movie is fun to watch partly because of the funny graphic work and we can see the threads hanging from the ceiling! Coming to the cast we can see a frail and young Adam Baldwin, a very young and pretty Geena Davis, a "pre-Batman" Michael Keaton (plays Beetle juice) and finally a very very young Winona Ryder. Combined with all this we have a very nice background score from Danny Elfmann (Who gave successful OSTs like Men In Black). Can be watched once.

FYI: Betelguese, Beatrix and Regal form the 3 stars that make up the constellation called the Orion's belt which is also called the Archer.

Danny Elfmann and Director Tim Burton come together later on for many successful movies including Batman, Planet of the Apes etc;