Beetlejuice

What’s it about?

The ghosts of Barbara and Adam, a married couple, continue to live in their home. When Barbara's sister sells the house to new people, they do their best to drive them out. When they get help from a wild ghost named Beetlejuice, things quickly get out of control, and a young girl, Lydia, tries to fix the mess.

The facts

• Directed by Tim Burton
• Stars Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin and Catherin O’Hara
• English language
• Runtime: 92 minutes
• After more than 35 years, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, a sequel to the original, has been released in 2024

Why did it get this rating?

This film was cross-rated by the Film and Video Labelling Body. You can find out more about cross-rating here.

Coarse language

The film comedically deals with themes of death and the afterlife, including ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’. There are strong words used in frustration like ‘god damn’, and at one stage Beetlejuice says ‘f*cking’.

Content that may disturb

• This film has some disturbing moments that may be upsetting for younger viewers, a few include:The Maitlands swerve while driving to avoid hitting a cat and end up crashing into a bridge. We see the car flip into the water and then later see the couple walking into their home drenched with water. We soon realise that they have died and are ghosts.
• A large claw-like sculpture being moved by a crane crashes into the house and then falls and pins a character against the house. Later we see the large sculptures become haunted and move.
• The Maitlands meet Beetlejuice in the toy model graveyard where they dig up his grave. He provokes the Maitlands by kissing Barbara without her consent.
• In a hilarious dinner sequence unsuspecting living characters start to uncontrollably sing and dance, and are briefly attacked by their food.
• We see Lydia upset and writing a suicide note (she reads this aloud).

Horror

Some scenes are quite frightening and may leaving a lasting impression on young viewers. These include:

• The Maitlands realise they’re dead and trapped in their own home. When they step outside, the landscape becomes a vast desert with large worm-like creatures that try to eat them. Dramatic soundsadd to the sense of terror.
• Barbara is seen hanging from a noose in a closet and pulls her own face off when the door is opened. In another room Barbara is seen holding Adam’s decapitated head and holding a bloodied knife. We see Adam running around the house as a headless body. These are scary and surprising sights that quickly become funny because no one living notices them. The Maitlands later practice transforming into scary and grotesque ghouls to scare the living.
• We see a range of scary and creepy creatures in the waiting room for the afterlife. These undead characters include a hunter with a shrunken head, a man who swallowed a bone that’s stuck in his throat, a surfer with a shark eating his leg, and a charcoaled man smoking cigarettes. A character in administration is shown as a flattened body with large tyre marks. We see ghouls with skeleton faces floating in a room known as ‘the lost souls room’.
• Beetlejuice tries to scare others by making snakes jump out of his head, spinning his head on his neck, groping female characters, and transforming into a giant rattle snake. He attempts to marry young Lydia against her will.
• The living characters conduct a séance where we see Barbara and Adam come to life in their wedding outfits but they start to take on the decaying form of their dead bodies.

Further information

• Why are ratings and content warnings important for me and my whānau?