Beetlejuice (1988) on Netflix
Adam and Barbara Maitland drown and come home as ghosts, unable to leave their New England house. When the Deetzes move in, the couple's efforts to scare them away fail.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.4/10422,621 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes83%
Trailer
Plot summary
Adam and Barbara Maitland are vacationing at their country home in Winter River, Connecticut, where Adam is building a small model of the town in the attic. Driving back from town, a stray dog makes them swerve and their car goes off a bridge into the river. They walk home, unable to recall how they got there, and when Adam tries to leave the house he vanishes for two hours into a place of enormous sandworms. Noticing they cast no reflections, the Maitlands find a Handbook for the Recently Deceased and realize they drowned. Charles Deetz, a New York developer, buys the house for his second wife Delia, a sculptor, and his teenage daughter Lydia. Delia and interior designer Otho Fenlock redo the place, and the Maitlands, invisible to Charles and Delia, cannot frighten them.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Beetlejuice (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Burton's original choice for Betelgeuse was Sammy Davis Jr.; Dudley Moore and Sam Kinison were also considered before Geffen suggested Michael Keaton, whose work Burton did not know but who quickly convinced him.
- Anjelica Huston was originally cast as Delia Deetz but dropped out because of illness. Catherine O'Hara nearly declined the role, then flew from Toronto to Los Angeles to meet Burton, went to the wrong Warner Bros. lot and missed him; she signed on anyway.
- The original script was far darker: the Maitlands' car crash was shown graphically, with Barbara's arm crushed as the couple screamed for help while slowly drowning, and instead of possessing the Deetzes at dinner, the ghosts brought a vine-patterned carpet to life to lash the family to their chairs.
- On March 10, 1998, Beetlejuice became the first of more than 5.2 billion DVDs shipped by Netflix, which launched as a mail-based rental business.
- Warner Bros. disliked the title Beetlejuice and wanted to call the film House Ghosts. Burton suggested Scared Sheetless as a joke and was horrified when the studio actually considered using it.
