Longtime director Tim Burton has had an extensive career of over forty years in Hollywood. The filmmaker’s repertoire has included family-friendly films (Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure), action-adventure (Batman), gothic romance (Edward Scissorhands), science-fiction (Mars Attacks, Planet of the Apes), horror (Sleepy Hollow), black comedy (Ed Wood), action-adventure (Alice In Wonderland), and even a musical (Sweeney Todd). Yet one genre at which he excels in is horror-comedy, and this is best exemplified with the 1988 surprise hit Beetlejuice.
You know the drill. If one says his name three times, he will appear to wreck havoc on your life.
Beetlejuice was Burton’s first mega-hit movie. Thirty-six years ago, the film made stars out of leads Michael Keaton, Alec Baldwin, and a young actress named Winona Ryder. It sparked an animated television series and various licensed comic books. However, fans clamoured for a sequel to be made, but Burton and Keaton kept resisting on the grounds of not wanting to taint the original film’s impact. There was even an attempt at sending the ghoul on vacation in a notorious unmade script titled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. Now, Burton, Keaton and Ryder are back in a sequel that is being well-received by critics and audiences alike.
Lydia Deetz (Ryder) is now the host of a popular television series called Ghost House and the mother to a teenaged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega from Netflix’s Wednesday). Having dealt with the odious bio-exorcist Betelgeuse (Keaton) decades ago, she has gained a level of fame with the rest of the world for her ability to communicate with ghosts. Although she’s engaged to her producer Rory (Justin Theroux), Lydia is having difficulty in her personal life- especially communicating with Astrid. Ever since the death of Astrid’s father Richard, both mother and daughter have been on the outs and rarely spend time together. In addition, Lydia has been experiencing triggering hallucinations of Betelgeuse while out in public, which leads her to relying on medication to get through her daily routine. Following the death of her father Charles, she returns to her hometown of Winter River for the funeral with stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) and Astrid in tow. Delia’s plan is to channel their grief into an art installation project- to which Lydia and Astrid are decidedly less enthusiastic about.
While rummaging around in the attic, Astrid discovers Betelgeuse’s miniature toy town and catches a glimpse of the ghoul, but Lydia stops her from saying his name three times. All the while, Rory is attempting to marry Lydia on Halloween, which happens to be her favourite holiday. During this time, Astrid befriends a local boy named Jeremy (Arthur Conti), who strikes up a connection with her. It is then revealed that Jeremy is a ghost who broke his neck over twenty years earlier. He begs Astrid to bring him from the dead with the promise of helping find her father. Astrid decides to resurrect Jeremy, and after reading an incantation, they enter the Afterlife to find a way. Unfortunately, she realizes too late that the passage she read was part of Jeremy’s ruse to exchange places and claim her soul.
In order to save Astrid, a desperate Lydia decides to summon Betelgeuse for help once again. Upon his return, “The Ghost with the Most” proves he hasn’t changed in nearly forty years. True to form, he’s still loud, obnoxious, rude, flamboyant, politically-incorrect, delights in terrifying people, and prone to eating the occasional insect. Nor has he gotten over his past dealings with Lydia. Betelgeuse offers to help Lydia rescue Astrid…. in exchange for her agreeing to marry him so he can leave the Afterlife for good. This scheme is essentially his equivalent of marrying to obtain a green card to stay in the real world. Despite her deep misgivings, Lydia reluctantly agrees to the deal. As expected, Betelgeuse proceeds to make the already complicated situation even more difficult for Lydia and Astrid. Needless to say, things do not go exactly as planned.
Meanwhile, Betelgeuse is having problems of his own in the Afterlife. An undead ghost detective Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe) is leading a murder case in which Betelgeuse is marked as a potential target. In a surprising twist, Betelgeuse’s ex-wife Delores (Monica Bellucci) is back and sucking the souls of deceased individuals. A flashback sequence (spoken in Italian) shows how a few centuries earlier, Betelgeuse was a grave-robber during the Black Plague era while he was still a mortal human. After a hectic wedding night of debauchery, she poisoned him, but he managed to kill her before she could claim his soul. As a result, Delores’ actions largely shaped the way Betelgeuse is. Now, it seems Delores has come for him once more. Further complicating things, Betelgeuse bringing Lydia into the Afterlife is a violation of the law, prompting Wolf to hunt him down.
Reprising his iconic turn as Beetlejuice, Michael Keaton proves he’s still in fine form and at the top of his game. Although he’s 73 now, the veteran actor proves age is nothing under layers of makeup, as the undead character remains virtually the same. Once more, he manages to steal the show without upstaging the others in the cast. Keaton succeeds in making Betelgeuse crass, vulgar, and downright funny at times, yet his fearing the ex-wife shows a vulnerable side to the character.
The cast does an excellent job in their roles. Winona Ryder shines in fine form as an older, jaded Lydia, and one really believes she is a concerned mother. Catherine O’Hara is hilarious as Delia, and her interactions with Ryder provide a warm, likeable banter to the characters’ relationship. Ortega brings a fresh mixture of angst and level-headedness to Astrid, and her scenes with Ryder and O’Hara are enjoyable. Unlike her mom’s belief in the supernatural and occult, Astrid is cool, logical and reliant on strictly using facts and science. Justin Theroux delivers a convincing blend of cockiness and hilarity as the manipulative Rory, and he almost succeeds in coming off as likeable at times. Monica Bellucci is unsettlingly effective as Delores, and she makes for a compelling antagonist to Betelgeuse. Even Willem Dafoe provides a welcome blend of authority and world-weariness as the reluctant adversary Wolf Jackson who’s just trying to keep law and order.
Returning as director, Burton succeeds in capturing the spirit of the original film. This is also due to the screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, both of whom created the long-running Smallville television series. Whereas the first movie was a gentrification story about yuppies moving to the countryside, this film is a family generational story involving women having to put up with male toxicity. Lydia, Delia, and Astrid have to deal with horrible men- namely, Betelgeuse, Rory and Jeremy- to varying degrees. In a similar fashion, these three women must contend with their own self-doubts.
As to be expected, here are several callbacks to the first Beetlejuice movie. These include giant striped sandworms, a ghoul with a shrunken head (named “Bob” in this film), and, yes, that infamous black and white striped suit. Burton also provides an update on the fate of the couple Adam and Barbara Maitland, played in the first film by Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis, that gives closure to their story. The original idea was to have the Mainlands appear in a cameo, but Burton and the producers nixed the plan in the end. Once again, Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O” song is featured in the narrative- as a cover version by Alfie Davis and a church choir. Sadly, Belafonte’s calypso version of “Shake Señora (Jump In the Line)” from the first movie’s ending scene is not featured this time around.
The film’s score is quite an excellent group of eclectic cuts. Apart from afore-mentioned “Day-O”, the tracks in the movie include Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffet, an epic sequence underscored by Richard Harris’s “MacArthur Park”, the Donna Sumner cover version of the aforementioned song, Richard Max’s “Right Here Waiting”, “Where’s The Man” by Scot Weiland, “Cry, Cry” by Mazz Star, Tess Park’s “Somedays”, and “Tragedy” by the Bee Gees. Horror movie fans will also recognize Pino Donaggio’s main theme from Carrie as well.
Overall, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice is a hilarious movie, and it is one of the year’s best films. Moreover, it serves as an excellent return to form for Burton. Keaton, Ryder, Ortega, and O’Hara deliver great performances. The film’s blend of horror and comedy works in service of the story, and it never comes off as boring or dull. Four out of four stars.
