Warner Bros, out now

The spirits of a deceased couple are harassed by an unbearable family that has moved into their home, and hire a malicious spirit to drive them out.

Tim Burton’s horror comedy bursts onto your screen in an ultra high definition transfer that really tests the HDR technology of the 4K player, its garish colour palette brightening the darkest of rooms. Add to that a Dolby ATMOS soundtrack and you’ll have spectral creatures flitting all around your lounge.

This inventive 1988 movie was for many their first mainstream exposure to Burton, the year before his world exploded with Batman. While he’d already made his big screen debut with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure in 1985, Beetlejuice was the movie that established the Burton movie tropes that would feature regularly in his subsequent work – from black and white stripes and checkerboard floors, to goth kids and Danny Elfman’s joyous carnival music.

Winona Ryder is a joy as the dark teenager Lydia, and equally beguiling are Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin’s lovable couple Barbara and Adam. But I’d forgotten just how lecherous, foul and annoying Betelgeuse (pronounced Beetlejuice) really is, Michael Keating having a great time as the afterlife’s leafing bio-exorcist, before donning Batman’s cowl the next year.

If there’s any complaints, the 4K picture is sometimes so clear that the superimposed stop-motion work really does show the joins, and there’s a real dearth of special features. There’s nothing extra on the 4K disc and the Blu-Ray extras are limited to a music-only track, the movie trailer and bizarrely three episodes of the Beetlejuice animated series (94 episodes were produced between 1989-91).

Verdict: Buy it for another beautiful UHD transfer from Warner’s, just don’t expect an equally impressive selection of extras. 8/10

Nick Joy

Click here to order from Amazon.co.uk