The musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s 1988 film Beetlejuice, which features music and lyrics by Australian singer-songwriter Eddie Perfect, has opened on Broadway to decidedly mixed reviews. With a book by Scott Brown and Anthony King and directed by Alex Timbers, the show is playing at the Winter Garden Theatre in New York with Alex Brightman and Sophia Anne Caruso in the lead roles. It follows Perfect’s King Kong, which opened on Broadway to tepid reviews last year. As far as the New York critics go, however, Beetlejuice  isn’t faring much better. While it’s been dubbed “a scream” by Variety, the New York Post called it “a disaster” – and there are a range of opinions in between.

Alex Brightman and Sophia Anne Caruso Beetlejuice. Photo © Matthew Murphy

“This show so overstuffs itself with gags, one-liners and visual diversions that you shut down from sensory overload,” wrote New York Times critic Ben Brantley, who said that the music “mostly exists in a loud, undifferentiated blur.”

The Guardian’s three-star review acknowledged that Beetlejuice “provides...