October looms on the horizon. The temperature is beginning to drop. The winds are picking up. Soon, leaves will be changing colors, and haunted houses and costume parties throughout the city will be finalizing their plans. All Hallows’ Eve is almost upon us, and the time left to prepare for it is dwindling. Thirty nights and thirty-one days remain before the big event, and every second is precious. If you're like me, you already have this year’s Halloween movie marathon canon selected—or you’re pretty close to deciding which films made the final cut. But if you have yet to pick your poison, fear not: throughout the month of October, I will be sharing my top five classic Halloween-themed movies to watch to get in the mood for the haunting season.
Number Five – Beetlejuice (1988)
It would be a veritable sin if there were no Tim Burton movies on this list. Burton went on to create masterpieces such as Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The list goes on into the late 2000s, but these are the true classics of his creation. Needless to say, the man is an icon. So, why Beetlejuice out of all of these? Well, for one, I just found out that one of my floor-mates has never seen the movie, and I was shocked. The film has been on my mind since then.
Beetlejuice was the earliest movie that could be considered as part of Tim Burton’s canon of horror movies. It was a box office success, and the movie and the titular character, Betelgeuse, retain a strong following among the general masses and in pop culture to this day. After all, when Universal Studios Orlando attempted to close the Beetlejuice Graveyard Revue, so many fans clamored to see it that the park granted it a temporary respite before lowering it into the grave. And, there is a musical (Beetlejuice the Musical) headed for Broadway in March of 2019. The movie has transcended from simply a good, freaky, and funny film to an American cultural phenomenon.
Simply being culturally significant, however, is not enough to have a top spot within my canon of perfect Halloween movies. I won’t lie and act like it didn’t sway my decision, but at the end of the day, the movie holds its own weight. Beetlejuice follows the lives of young couple Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, respectively) into their afterlives. After their unexpected deaths, their spirits are trapped within the bounds of their old house, but things really get turned upside down when zany Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara), her meek husband, and her doom-obsessed stepdaughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) move in. With seemingly no way of scaring them out, the Maitlands consult self- proclaimed bio-exorcist Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) and unleash madness on both themselves and the Deetz family.
There are a lot of truly wonderful things about this movie. Burton wished to embrace the B-movie aesthetic with the film’s low budget, giving it its lovably cheap looking visual effects. The puppetry and stop-motion animation is superb, and although sometimes the visual effects look fake, the makeup is fantastic and mostly realistic. Harry Belafonte’s iconic “Banana Boat Song” and “Jump in the Line” grace the movie’s soundtrack, although they are not the only two of his songs to be present. Of the original songs, Main Titles is one of the most iconic pieces of soundtrack today in its own right. I haven’t heard many other soundtracks played as part of the soundtrack for a theme park and used in trailers for movies other than what it was written for. Even the less iconic songs pair beautifully with the imagery and mood of the film. The comedy and the shocks are well-timed, although some viewers may find the more off-color jokes to be off-putting.
Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin deliver fantastic performances as the Maitlands. During the time they are alive, expertly-crafted dialogue blends with the strength of their performances – especially Davis’s – garnering the audience’s understanding and sympathy. Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton’s performances are just as noteworthy. Ryder’s Lydia is the quintessential goth-girl figure which remains a popular trope to this day. Keaton’s campy performance as the vile bio-exorcist Betelgeuse brings most of the comedy to the movie. The greatest piece of criticism I could give, however, is that most of his humor is rather crude in nature, but even this crude nature reveals his true personality. Although Betelgeuse can be quite humorous, Keaton is able to reveal his scheming, malicious, and horrific true self on a dime.
Great music, terrific performances and directorship, and a compelling storyline combine to form Beetlejuice. It is all these elements as a whole that have led me to grant the movie my number five spot in this year’s movie marathon.
Keep looking out – next week, I’ll be taking on my number four pick.
Indira Ramgolam is a freshman in Columbia College.