This is a proposal I've been wanting to make since the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice came out, but due to being swamped in college work and also losing access to my previous account, I never got the chance. However, the day has finally arrived to propose everyone's favorite bio-exorcist. Since the original books, the cartoon, and the musical all exist within their own continuities, they will not be taken into account in this proposal.
What is the Work?
Beetlejuice, and its 2024 sequel, follow the chaos that ensues with a man who died during the bubonic plague, and later became a bio-exorcist that removes humans from the homes of the deceased. He has an infatuation with Lydia Deetz, a family member amongst a group of people he was exorcising on behalf of Adam and Barbra. He would come close to marrying her but is later stopped by the couple he is working on behalf of.
In the second move Beetleguese is continuing his life as a bio-exorcist, but is called back by a much older Lydia after her daughter Astrid was kidnapped by a teenage serial killer attempting to trade her soul for his. After they succeed, the wedding almost takes place but is stopped by the intervention of Astrid when she exploits a legal loophole to prevent the wedding.
Who is the Character and What Has He Done.
Beetleguese is of course the character I described above, a wacky bio excorist who attempts to scare away humans from the homes of the deceased. He died in the plague in an attempt for his soul made by his ex-wife Delores. Following this, he became the assistant his Netherworld caseworker, Juno. However, she disagreed with his more aggressive methods, and they went their separate ways with Beetleguese now working freelance.
Then the events of the first movie take place where he is called by Barbra and Adam to scare the Deetz, he takes it too far, and later tries to marry the teenage Lydia to rejoin the land of the living. However, the plot is stopped by Barbra and Adam, and Beetlejuice is sent back to the Netherworld, facing the consequences of violating his probation.
In the next movie, Beetlejuice now has his own office space with a selection of employees. At the same time, his ex-wife Deloras has returned and wants his soul. While this is happening, he is called back by Lydia, who legally agrees to marry him in exchange for help getting her daughter back. They succeed, and the wedding commences, in place of the Rory who had been revealed a greedy and deceitful. He also traps several influencers at the wedding inside their phones and freezes the afterlife police attempting to take him in. However, his plot is put to an end by Astrid, who took advantage of Beetlejuice violating code 699 to send him back to the afterlife.
Heinous Standards
Based on the first movie alone, Beetlejuice is too bog-standard to count. Even his sexually perverted behavior towards Barbra and Adam, alongside the creepy connotations of his relationship with Lydia are brushed off as part of the plot not to think about. However, this changes by the second movie.
In fact, there is one single action that pushes Beetlejuice past both the baseline, and the heinous standards of the work, beating both his ex-wife, alongside Jeremy in their actions due to it's uniqueness. It is in this scene here: https://youtu.be/DkigLXXHtCI?si=VOuK3zoUdm6bW6HE
Don't let the video's title fool you, by all accounts, these influencers are still alive. They're just confined within their phones, disfigured in a horrified state. This is a fate worse than death on a mass level, and there's no fridge horror about it. We actually see when the phones drop that the influencers are still stuck inside the phones in their horrified state, and they are never let out within the movie.
While Deloras also did FWTD stuff by sucking out peoples souls, it was never in this quantity, and it was also a totally different kind of FWTD than what Beetlejuice is doing. She removed people from existence completely, which while bad, doesn't remove the uniqueness of Beetlejuice leaving these people trapped in a state of horror forever.
What Makes Him Inconsistent
For starters, he is rarely taken completely seriously. There are many moments of the movie that paint him with absurdist comedy, such as over the top advertisement for his services to Adam and Barb, exposing Otho's outfit to a summer suit, having his head shrunk after his defeat in the first movie, giving Lydia a boxing glove to punch Rory, and his defeat in the second movie where he inflates and explodes.
He also displays standards on occasions, such as his concerned reaction upon believing Lydia wanted to commit suicide, and his disgust at Rory and Jeremy's actions.
He's also a pretty affable character to his employees in the second movie, most notably his assistant Bob who he puts in charge of his workplace while he's gone.
You could also maybe argue he's on-and-off due to his enthusiasm in helping the protagonists in the second movies, however, nearly all of these actions were done out of pragmatism, so it's a bit of a stretch.
Verdict
Yes, the juice is loose on the IH wiki.