great fun, but the amount of scenes that don't jive well is overwhelming

What I find interesting in Beetlejuice is the world building. What happens after we're dead? (And why Sandworms? If it's a Dune reference, it's a very deep cut.) The film gives some interesting answers, and turns the haunted house cliché on its head by making it about the ghosts' point of view. Indeed, they are the normal ones, and the family who bought their house are the real monsters. Tim Burton does tend to over-design, and at first I was a little put off that the made-over house was as bizarre as the afterlife. It lacked contrast. But then I realized that was the point. The new family was the ghosts' version of hell. Burton's love of the monstrous is manifest in the helpful daughter - Winona Ryder as the prototypical Goth girl - and in the way he steers his weird ship towards the unexpected. There's also a charming home-made feeling to the design, with stop motion monsters and a well-used model of the town in which Beetlejuice lives. I've been outspoken before about my disinterest in more recent Burton films, but Beetlejuice was made when he still had it!

Jump in de line, rock your body in time - OK, I believe you!