Beetlejuice

Microcephalics, also known as "pinheads" (offensive) have been featured in movies as early as 1932 (Freaks). The original version has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In his case, this is accompanied by mental retardation and small stature (4' 3"), though he does not have the disproportionate limb size associated with dwarfism. Another remake is currently in production, due for release in 2006. He suffers from microcephaly, an abnormally small head and brain. It did not receive wide theatrical distribution and was for the most part critically panned. Beetlejuice is also the name of a recurring guest on the Howard Stern show who has also appeared in several movies and music videos. In its structure it plays like a straightforward alien invasion thriller, and does not attempt to create the overriding paranoiac mood of the earlier films.

Also, in the LucasArts adventure game Grim Fandango, people who commit crimes in life are forced to work off their time at the nightmarishly bureaucratic "Department of Death." All these are examples of Bangsian fantasy. This time the story was set on a military base, and did not attempt to follow the plot of either the original or the 1978 version. Another, although not as extreme example is the 2004 TV series Dead Like Me, in which the characters need to work as grim reapers before they can leave limbo. John, and was directed by Abel Ferrara. Beetlejuice seems to be inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist novel Les jeux sont faits (1952), in which death as meaningless bureaucracy is prominently featured. It was adapted by Raymond Cistheri, Larry Cohen, Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli and Nicholas St. Tim Burton, however is not interested. A 1993 version, called Body Snatchers, stars Terry Kinney, Meg Tilly and Gabrielle Anwar.

A sequel to the movie has been in the works for over fifteen years, without any results, although Michael Keaton has expressed interest in reprising his role. There are distinct similarities between the 1978 film and the tone of the "mythology" episodes of the popular 1990s television series The X-Files. Beetlejuice had a cast of wacky neighbors including Jacques, a French skeleton fitness buff; Ginger, a tap-dancing spider; The Monster Across the Street, a boisterous Texas redneck; and a nasty clown named Scuzzo who is his arch-nemesis. The script could thus be thought to reflect growing anti-government fears that would later manifest themselves among conspiracy theorists. Many of the jokes revolve around toilet humor and visual puns. Lacking the Cold War subtext of the original, Kaufman concentrated on a style of paranoia that was more reflective of the mistrust and malaise pervasive in post-Vietnam, post-Watergate America. Kaufman's film is set not in a small town but in San Francisco; in one scene, Sutherland's character calls Washington for help, only to find his calls are being intercepted and his name is known to the person on the other line before he gives it. Lydia and Beetlejuice are friends, and she frequently visits him at home in the Netherworld. Richter and directed by Philip Kaufman, and, unlike many remakes, met with generally favorable critical response.

An animated television series loosely based on the film also called Beetlejuice ran on ABC from September 1989 to December 1991, featuring the voices of Stephen Ouimette, Alyson Court, and Tara Strong. The 1978 version was adapted by W.D. Lydia is the only living character who sees the couple, and is tapped to help them deal with both her obnoxious parents and with the crass and impetuous Beetlejuice. The remake ends with Sutherland's character destroying the "pod people's" facility where they grow the pods, but he is found and turned into a pod person, which is revealed in the last second of the film. The world outside is a parched nightmare of sand dunes and a sandworm (Betelgeuse calls this place Saturn). As with the first film, it does not have a "happy ending". Adam and Barbara are trapped in their house. Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia also appears briefly, as does Robert Duvall.

People who commit suicide, for example, are bored civil servants (the receptionist Adam and Barbara meet slit her wrists) rather than trees, as in the Inferno. There are a number of interesting cameo appearances in the film, among them the star and director of the original; Kevin McCarthy appears briefly as a man on the street frantically screaming about aliens (in a shot reminiscent of the final shot of the original) and Don Siegel appears as a cab driver. The movie paints the picture of hell as stuffy and bureaucratic rather than Dantean, with waiting rooms, oceans of red tape, and required reading (The "Handbook for the Recently Deceased"). The first of two remakes appeared in 1978, starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum Veronica Cartwright and Jerry Walter. Songs from Harry Belafonte are featured quite heavily in the movie, especially in one scene where Delia starts belting out "Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)"—in Belafonte's voice, thanks to some spectral trickery; at a dinner she and Charles are hosting. It was directed by Don Siegel. Notable guest appearances include Robert Goulet and Dick Cavett (Delia's art agent). The screenplay was adapted by Richard Collins (uncredited), Daniel Mainwaring and Sam Peckinpah from the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney.

A typically dark and humorous Tim Burton film, most of Keaton's lines were apparently improvised on set. The taking-over of ordinary citizens metaphorically reflected the paranoia in Cold War America of how communism might infiltrate the body politic in such a way that you would have no way of suspecting if your friends and neighbors had been corrupted. He used to be an assistant to Juno (Sylvia Sidney), the Maitlands' case worker, before getting into trouble. Beetlejuice is rude, vulgar, eats insects, and loves to terrify people. The film is frequently cited as an indictment of the hysteria of McCarthyism during the early stages of the Cold War. Adam and Barbara are not his only victims, as scams are his specialty. Once a pod person is fully grown and integrated into society, he works secretly to spread more pods, so that more people will be taken over. Repeating this name three times is all that is required to summon him and also makes him leave. The "pod people" are indistinguishable from normal people, except for their utter lack of emotion.

The name of the film is the phonetic pronunciation of the lead character's name Betelgeuse who shares his name with a large red star in the constellation of Orion. They emerge from plantlike pods, and grow into perfect physical duplications of their human victims, who themselves die and are discarded. The Deitz family consists of Charles (Jeffrey Jones), his second wife Delia (Catherine O'Hara), and moody goth teenage daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder). An alien race departs their dying world and lands on Earth. It features two recently deceased ghosts, Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) and his wife Barbara (Geena Davis), who seek the help of an obnoxious bio-exorcist, Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton), to remove the Deitz family — yuppies who recently moved from the city and now occupy their old house. It stars Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan and Carolyn Jones. Beetlejuice is a film, directed by Tim Burton and first released in the USA on March 30, 1988 by Warner Bros. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 science fiction/horror film which tells the story of ordinary small town people whose bodies are taken over by aliens.