Beetlejuice - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Beetlejuice



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Ahhh Beetlejuice. The movie where Tim Burton was allowed full creative control and we all realized he was a creative genius, or else a slightly disturbed man. After the success of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure Tim Burton was shot to super stardom in the directorial world, and given a litany of scripts to look over and choose from, while he shot down many of them, sat down to work on the script for the pivotal superhero film Batman (which would forever change the face of the Dark Knight on the silver screen) and dove head first into the production of Beetlejuice. Shot on a cheap (for today) budget of $13 million (with $1 million of that budget just for the stop motion special effects), Beetlejuice was a love letter to the old Harryhausen stop motion pictures with a modern Burton flair. It’s dark, it’s gothic, it’s hilarious, and still heavily dramatic at the same time, and it is ALL Tim Burton.

Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) are the idyllic American couple who decide to spend their vacation at home instead of going out for the week. Heading to the hardware store to grab some supplies for their week at home, Adam and Barbara end up swerving off a bridge in order to hit a dog. Bedraggled and frazzled, they get home only to find out that they’re dead, and only in spirit form. Haunting their home where they lived, the couple are dismayed to find out that the Deetze family has moved in after their death. To make matters worse the Deetzes are slightly off their rocker. Husband Charles (Jeffrey Jones) has slightly cracked upstairs, wife Delia (Catherine O’Hara) is OCD and neurotic, while daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) things she’s the prince of darkness himself (errrr, herself).

When Lydia proves that she can see the ghost couple, Adam and Barbara come up with a plan thanks to their spirit world “contacts”. Call upon the name of Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), a “special” spirit who specializes in scaring off humans. The only thing is, his methods are slightly queer, and once he’s been called upon, the slightly needy and demanding ghost is more of a pain to get rid of than the actual humans he’s pushing out. This results in the Maitlands finding a way to defeat Beetlejuice on their own and banishing him to the afterlife forever.

Beetlejuice is played off as a comedy from the trailer, and that’s exactly what most people were expecting in 1988. And in some ways they got what they were expecting. Keaton plays Beetlejuice with a sort of lunacy that is hilarious to watch, and Jeffrey Jones plays one of the best “cracked’ characters I’ve seen in quite some time. However, the movie subverted expectations in the second act when Beetlejuices hidden agenda comes out. The film shifts from darkly comedic (in a Burton sort of way) to brooding and almost horroresque, ending with the gloomy and sad ending (which is more of an uptick in humor for a split second).

The movie plays well to Burton’s strengths, utilizing Gothic set pieces and quirky humor to portray a more serious subject matter. Beetlejuice came out of nowhere in 1988 and blew me away a few years later when I watched it on VHS. Honestly, it’s one of Burton’s best works next to his subsequent film Batman and a love letter to the old stop motion effects of Harryhausen. The film is a mix of modern (for the times) special effects, practical effects and some really cool uses of stop motion, which gives us one of the most unique pictures of the decade. The film hasn’t held up AS well as it did in 1988 for the effects, but the story is still a blast and one of my favorite roles to see Michael Keaton in.




Rating:

Rated PG by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

Wow. I’ve had Beetlejuice ever since it came out in 2008 and was impressed with the transfer back then, but I’ve come to realize that compared to modern day transfers it is rather weak in comparison. It was back in the fledgling days of the format wars with HD-DVD where Warner was using encodes that would fit on a 25 gig single layer disc, and using the less efficient VC-1 codec. So you color me tickled pinker than a pig’s belly when this new 4K UHD simply blows the aging Blu-ray right out of the water.

The Blu-ray looks blown out and the colors almost neon hot in comparison. Faces are ruddy while the resulting image can look a bit parchment yellowed at times. This new transfer is light years better with the HDR, making the colors look MORE vibrant, yet still not as neon hot and over exposed. They literally ooze with richness and the slightly darkened image is much more pleasing to the eye than the hot looking Blu-ray. Fine details are excellent, showcasing stunning detail around the faces and objects, and the comparison to the lightly soft (and grainy) Blu-ray is impressively nuanced. The textures are just so much more nuanced and so much more revealing, and the added depth to shadows and darkness in the gloomy house is stunning. Simply put, tears the old disc to pieces.







Audio:

Unlike most of the 2008 initial offerings from Warner Brothers, Beetlejuice was given a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD lossless track instead of the more common 640 kbps lossy Dolby Digital track of it’s brethren, and thus sounded rather nice for the day. However, Warner has tweaked the mix into a full fledged Dolby Atmos mix (the only one of the 4 films being released on Sept 1st that has an atmos track) and like you would guess, it sounds fantastic. The soundstage is more open and vibrant, with a light and airy sound to it with the kooky antics of the Maitlands and Beetlejuice himself. LFE is tight and punchy for the “scare” moments, and the roar and bellow of things like sandworms and other various spooky noises are thick and full of life. Vocals are crisp and cleanly located up front, and the overheads get some solid ambient overhead usage (such as when Barbara comes in riding the sandworm in the final scene or so).





Extras:

• Beetlejuice Cartoon Episodes
• Music-Only Audio Track
• Theatrical Trailer

Final Score: ​

Beetlejuice was the first of Burton’s films that he got to display his full creative quirkiness, and it is AWASH with tropes that would later define his career. The movie is fun and darkly comedic, and the 4K UHD is well worth upgrading too. The old 1080p 20th anniversary Blu-ray we’ve had for 12 years was good at the time, but looks rather dated by today’s mastering standards, so when it’s replaced by a startling 4K UHD release, the different is even more staggering. The upgrade to Dolby Atmos is a welcome bonus as well, opening up the sound stage with the new mix and breathing new life into what was a rather flat 5.1 TrueHD mix from the day. All in all, this is a welcome upgrade for everything but the extras (the same 3 extras are found on the Blu-ray disc, which is a direct clone of the 2012 Blu-ray) and makes for a very nifty set, especially if you get the special edition swag box that’s available on Amazon right now.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Geena Davis, Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Annie McEnroe, Jeffrey Jones, Winona Ryder
Directed by: Tim Burtons
Written by: Michael McDowell, Warren Skaaren
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), Chinese DD 5.1, French (Canadian), French, German, Italian, Spanish, Spanish (Canadian), Czech DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Korean, Mandarin (Simplified), Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Swedish, Thai
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: PG
Runtime: 92 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: September 1st, 2020

Recommendation: Great Upgrade

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. Another classic worth revisiting.

 

[Bassaholic]

The video is amazing. Thank you for no DNR.