Beetlejuice

Over View

Beetlejuice is a Bio-Exorcist, a ghost who can exorcise the living. He is very strange and hangs out with his only real friend Lydia Deetz .

Film

The 1988 horror-comedy Beetlejuice film by Tim Burton was the origin and first appearance of Beetlejuice. In the film the character of Beetlejuice was played by Micheal Keaton. Beetlejuice makes his first appearance after the Maitilands have died and are looking to scare the Deetz family out of there old home. Beetlejuice first shows up in a commercial they see where he advertises himself as a bio-exorcist who can get rid of the living. The Maitilands ask their handler Juno about Beetlejuice and she tells them to stay away from him adn that he was her former assistant before he went off on his own. Beetlejuice starts living inside the Maitlands model of their home town where he meets the Maitlands and after they literally dig him out of the model he starts pitching his plans to scare the Deetz family out of the house.

He demonstrates his powers of possession, levitation, and head spinning scary tactics as well as his lecherous ways. The Maitilands leave without hiring Beetlejuice and attempt to scare the family away themselves which Beetlejuice laughs at. Beetlejuice is later able to get free of the model and attack the family in the form of a snake and nearly kills Mr. Deetz when he drops him over the second floor railing. He begins showing interst in Lydia when Ms. Matilnd banishes him by saying his name three times. Beetlejuice is next seen in the Maitlands model town where he converses with Lydia and uses his famous line "I'm the ghost with the most". Lydia ends up playing a game of charades to discover his name and almost summons him when the Maitlands return and stop her. Lydia reveals she wished herself dead so she could find them. After a pep talk about how being dead isn't easy the Deetz and there friend Otho use the handbook of the recently deceased to summon the Matilands ghost to stage a horror side show for money. This rtiual decays their forms and makes them almost go through a second death.

Lydia desperate goes to find Beetlejuice and agrees to summon him out if he saves the Matilands. "Its Showtime" and Beetlejuice animates various objects in the house while shapeshifitng to other forms to torment the house guests. After the ritual was stopped though Beetlejuice revealed his plan to marry Lydia so that he could remain in the living world. It takes Lydia, the Matilands, and a sandworm to stop the wedding and get rid of Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice is last seen in the newly dead reception room where he has his head shrunken through magic when he tries to cheat a voodoo shaman out of his ticket. Though he does state that the shrunken head look may work for him.

Powers and Abilities

Depending on witch medium you view Beetlejuice's powers vary in strength and intensity. The original move as Beetlejuice using various ghostly tricks ranging from possessing humans, shape shifting into various objects and creatures(A giant snake, increasing size, sprouting spikes over his body), summoning and animating inanimate objects to serve him (like Ms. Deetz artwork), performing magic that affects the living and ghosts, teleporting, and overall turning his domain into his personal plaything. These abilities make him an excellent Bio-Exorcist who specializes in getting rid of the living. Beetlejuice can be summoned to the living realm by saying his name three times and can then be sent back to the afterlife by saying his name again three times. In his animated series seems to be even more powerful, readily displaying great feats of magic and being able to subdue most other denizens of the afterlife. His disembodied brain has stated that Beetlejuice has enough power to take over the entire netherworld. His body is powered by what he refers to as "juice" which powers his abilities. Beetlejuice's juice even allows his individual body parts to become sentient and sometimes rebel against their host. Beetlejuice's powers work on what is know as literal translation. Whatever he says happens in the most literal sense of the phrase. Beetlejuice said "I'm flat broke" and promptly turned into a disk which shattered on the ground. Beetlejuice once even broke the 4th wall by saying "this literal tranlation stuff slays me" where he was promptly smashed by large print of that exact phrase. This can be used against him if his enemies can get him to say something detrimental to himself. 4 villians once got him to say that he was "falling apart at the seems". He promptly fell to pieces which were scattered across the afterlife. Beetlejuice's overall power decreases when he is split apart and cannot perform magic headless. Another weakness his his fear of sandworms, large striped worms that feed in the afterlife denizens. Even seeing a sandworm causes Beetlejuice to panic and be unable to use his magic to its most effective even though he has plenty of power to deal with them.