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A successful sequel to the 1988 classic film “Beetlejuice,” “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” brought back a nostalgic cast with a new, exciting story. Betelgeuse (Micheal Keaton) is a ghost who specializes in Bio-Exorcism, or the removal of humans from ghost properties, and is cursed to be summoned when someone says his name three times.
In the original movie, Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) is an angsty, goth, teen girl who moves into the house of the former Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) with her father and step-mother, Delia Deetz (Catherine O’Hara). Adam and Barbara are ghosts who can’t leave their house for 125 years and don’t want the new Deetz family living there. With the help of Lydia, who can see ghosts, they try to scare the family out of the house, but are unsuccessful. They summon Betelgeuse to bio-exorcise the Deetz family. Through many turns of events, Betelgeuse unsuccessfully tries to marry Lydia and come back to the living world, but Lydia tricks him into saving the Maitlands and Betelgeuse gets swallowed by a sandworm.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” did an exemplary job of paying homage to the first film. Starring an older Lydia Deetz and her daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), the film takes place about 30 years after the original. Lydia is the host of a TV show that helps people deal with their ghosts, but she is haunted by the memories of Betelgeuse. Due to an unexpected accident resulting in the death of Lydia’s father, the Deetz family moves back to the original house in Winter River, Connecticut to clean it out. In a burst of spontaneity, Lydia’s boyfriend, a money-hungry TV show producer, proposes for them to get married in three days.
From here, the plot splits and converges in a very hard-to-follow manner.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD…
Betelgeuse’s history from before death is revealed. He lived in Italy during the Black Plague, where he met a cult leader, Delores, and married her. While performing an immortality ritual, Delores poisoned Betelgeuse, but he managed to kill her before he died himself. In the present, Delores escapes from her dismembered state in the Afterlife and goes on a mission to find Betelgeuse and get her revenge. She has a terrifying and unique power to suck the souls of even the dead, permanently erasing them. As a result, Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe), head of the Afterlife’s police force, starts a manhunt for her.
Astrid, running away from her mother’s engagement, meets a local boy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti) who connects with her through shared interests and world views. He invites her over to hang out on Halloween, just before her mom’s wedding. Lydia drops Astrid off at his house that night. Secrets are exposed and Astrid ends up in the Afterlife, looking for her deceased father, but she is in danger of losing her soul to the Great Beyond.
Meanwhile, Lydia finds out that Astrid is in danger. To save Astrid, she summons Betelgeuse, who only takes her to the Afterlife after making her agree to marry him. However, Wolf Jackson sends for Betelgeuse to be detained, as he illegally brought a living person to the Afterlife. Lydia finds Astrid, but her attempt to rescue her daughter lands them both in the realm of the sandworm. Luckily, they escape and make their way back to the living world, where they arrive at the church for the wedding.
While Lydia and Astrid are in the Afterlife, Delia attempts to perform a ceremony that ends in her abrupt death. She encounters Betelgeuse in the Afterlife and agrees to help him find Lydia if he helps her reunite with her husband. Once Delia and Betelgeuse arrive at the church, Betelgeuse injects a truth serum in Lydia’s fiancé, forcing him to reveal his true malicious intentions for their marriage.
Betelgeuse prepares to marry Lydia, eliminating any other distractions, including the wedding guests and Afterlife guards who have come to arrest him. At this moment, Delores appears and makes her way to suck Betelgeuse’s soul.
The film ends with a dramatic flourish and a resolution that almost seems too perfect, not dissimilar from the other movie, and everyone, for the most part, lives happily ever after.
The main aspect of this sequel that makes it so endearing is the consistency with production. The characters look uncannily similar, and all of the special effects and graphic design have advanced, but still maintain the qualities of disbelief that made the movie stick out. The rigidity of the sandworm’s movement reflected that of the stop-motion sandworm in the 1988 version, but with much more detail and high definition. The contorted faces that Adam and Barbara used to try and scare the Deetz’s away were also referenced in multiple scenes. It’s really impressive how director Tim Burton managed to make two movies made 36 years apart transition seamlessly.
The movie’s countless twists and turns mirror the exciting blend between comedy and horror that made the original film so popular.
Tim Burton hasn’t given much evidence that there will be a third Beetlejuice movie, though it would be iconic to name it after the very curse which the movies revolve around, so we can only anticipate what’s to come.
