The Original ‘Beetlejuice’ Really Confused Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert

Beetlejuice is the worst part of Beetlejuice — at least, that’s what Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert thought back when the 1988 original was released.

“Beetlejuice is the story of a young couple who has fixed up a nice country home, but they die in a car accident. When they return home, they discover they’re ghosts. Then the home is sold to an obnoxious couple from New York City, their daughter and their lousy decorator and the ghosts try to scare them all away, but they can’t be seen. What to do? How to get the new people to leave? As in Ghostbusters, they must call on outside help. In this case a wacky alien character from another world named Beetlejuice, played by Michael Keaton.”

This is how Siskel described the film, but the only part he seemed to have any affection for was the part about the young couple and their house. “I really thought the Michael Keaton character detracted from a rather nice couple played by Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin,” he explained. 

“I like that relationship between Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin,” concurred Ebert (a rare moment of televised agreement between him and Siskel!). “I thought it was going to be a goofy, silly comedy about this young married couple trying to fix up this crummy house.”

As for Beetlejuice the character, Siskel said, “A little of this guy goes a long, long way, and the back half of this movie is absolutely stuffed with his antics,” and it was “too much of a not very good thing.” 

“Beetlejuice is absolutely obnoxious,” Ebert proclaimed. “That’s what it is. It’s not funny, it’s just, ‘There’s that guy again. Let’s get rid of him.’” He also called the movie a “Ghostbusters clone.”

Seeing the duo trash what is now an unqualified classic is interesting in itself, but their utter confusion over it — plus them lamenting that it isn’t a movie about a nice couple renovating their home — is incredibly funny all by itself, too.