Beetlejuice
Directed by Tim Burton
TheoScope Rating
Worldview · content · moral framework
Plot
Adam and Barbara are a normal couple...who happen to be dead. They have given their precious time to decorate their house and make it their own, but unfortunately a family is moving in, and not quietly. Adam and Barbara try to scare them out, but end up becoming the main attraction to the money making family. They call upon Beetlejuice to help, but Beetlejuice has more in mind than just helping.
Discern Score Breakdown
30%
30%
25%
15%
Audience Suitability
Kids
Under 10
Teens
10–17
Adults
18+
Family
Mixed ages
Content Flags
Beetlejuice is a darkly comedic fantasy that uses death and the supernatural as playful scaffolding for a story about belonging, family, and authenticity. While it has genuine charm and a functional moral arc, its casual and comedic treatment of the afterlife, ghosts, and occult rituals presents a theological worldview entirely at odds with Christian teaching. It is better suited to older teens and adults who can appreciate it as irreverent entertainment without internalizing its secular spiritual framework.
Pastoral Take
Beetlejuice is a creative and genuinely fun film for older teens and adults who can engage with it critically, but parents should be cautious about showing it to children under 10 — the grotesque imagery, horror-adjacent scenes, and Beetlejuice's crude sexual humor are more intense and adult than the PG rating suggests. The film's biggest concern for Christian families isn't the scares but the theology: death, the afterlife, and the spirit world are all treated as comedic bureaucratic systems with no reference to God, judgment, or eternity, and the casual summoning of spirits could open conversations worth having deliberately rather than accidentally. If you do watch it with your teens, it's actually a good springboard to talk about what the Bible genuinely teaches about death and what comes after — because this film will almost certainly prompt those questions.
Discussion Points
- 1In the movie, Adam and Barbara discover a 'Handbook for the Recently Deceased' that explains the afterlife like a government rulebook. What do you think the Bible actually says happens after we die — and how does that compare to what this film shows? Why do you think so many movies and stories imagine the afterlife so differently from what Scripture teaches?
- 2Beetlejuice agrees to 'help' Adam and Barbara, but it turns out he only wants to use them for his own benefit. Can you think of a time when someone offered to help but had selfish motives? How does the Bible describe what genuine, selfless love looks like — and how is that different from what Beetlejuice offers?
- 3Lydia feels like she doesn't fit in with her materialistic family — she sees the world differently from everyone around her, and that loneliness is part of why she connects with the ghosts. Have you ever felt like you didn't belong or that nobody understood you? What does the Bible say about how God sees people who feel overlooked or different?
- 4The Deetz family wants to commercialize the haunted house and turn Adam and Barbara's home into a tourist attraction. The film clearly portrays this as wrong — treating something sacred and personal as a product. Can you think of ways people today treat things that should be sacred — like life, relationships, or even faith — as something to be bought and sold?
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Cast
Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Michael Keaton
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