The film begins with a fairly young couple, Barbara and Adam Maitland, who are on vacation in a country home. At some point, they need to drive away – only for their car to fall into a river from the bridge.

When they wake up, they discover that they are ghosts. Not only that, but no living human can see or hear them. Barbara and Adam can’t even see their own reflections in the mirror.

Sometime later, the Deetz family moves in. There is Charles, his second wife, Delia, and his teenage daughter, Lydia.

Lydia is goth and loves to take pictures. But she is also depressed.

Meanwhile, Adam and Barbara are worried about the house. Since no one can see them, they decide to wear sheets and float in them while making spooky sounds.

That night, Lydia spots them. Surprisingly, she can also see and hear them. But that is because others consider her weird and ordinary people can’t see or hear ghosts.

Later, Adam and Barbara go to this supernatural guy called Betelgeuse. However, they are unimpressed by him, and his sense humor is offensive at times.

While the Deetzes are having a dinner party with some family friends, Barbara and Adam decide to possess all of them. They all start singing the Banana Boat song.

But Betelgeuse shows up in snake form and scares the Deetzes away. In addition, Barbara and Adam are also penalized for some of their irresponsible actions.

If that’s not bad enough, crazier things continue to occur – including Lydia writing a suicidal note. What is going to happen next?

Even though I saw the Broadway adaptation of this movie and really enjoyed that, this one differed a lot from it. That includes the amount of humor and ability to engage me.

I will admit that the first several minutes were kind of boring. I also found it to be misleading, because Adam and Barbara took the spotlight during that time.

Lydia, her dad, and her stepmother showed up much later than I expected. They appeared much earlier in the Broadway show. And they were more of protagonists than in this film.

However, I do not consider that a major flaw. I am well aware that movies and Broadway adaptations of them are going to be pretty different.

But one strength the movie possessed was the ability to make me laugh. There was also a lot of tension – particularly later in the story.

And the character development was strong as usual. Not only were Adam and Barbara likable and credible, but their relationship with Lydia was sweet.

Although it is not specified like in the Broadway show, the movie implies that Lydia’s mother had died. So, being able to see Barbara and Adam and connect to them must have been really comforting to Lydia.

As for Betelgeuse, I admired his humor and heroic actions – even if they backfired.

Overall, I thought Beetlejuice was decent. If the first several minutes were more exciting than I would have enjoyed it a lot.

I give this film 3.5 out of 5 stars.