Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Hey everyone and welcome, today we will be talking about the film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Fun Fact, There is a sign with the title of this movie in the miniature town in Beetlejuice. This film came out in 2024 and stars Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega, Catherine O’Hara, and Michael Keaton and was directed by Tim Burton.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sees us following Lydia who is an adult now and keeps having visions of Betelgeuse. After her dad dies in a freak accident, She, Her stepmother Delia, her daughter Astrid, and her boyfriend Rory head to Winter River to their old house. Once Lydia’s daughter gets in trouble in the underworld, Lydia must call on the unlikeliest of allies, Betelgeuse, to save her.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a fantasy comedy film. It has similar vibes to Beetlejuice, The Corpse Bride, and American Horror Story: Murder House.

I love Beetlejuice and it’s a Halloween staple and I was happy that they were making a sequel though I was worried because in the past these legacy sequels can be a hit or miss. I often feel like they struggle with finding an interesting story that will mirror the love for the original while also creating a new generation of fans. While I thought the film was funny, it did miss the mark on a couple of things.

Winona Ryder returns as Lydia who is now an adult and is having visions of her Betelgeuse. I liked how she used this ability to see ghosts to help others to an extent and also make money, love a businesswoman. I feel like there was some character assassination with Lydia because how does this character who in the original was so independent and charted her own path forward suddenly end up very dependent on a man and gullible to anything he says? I just felt it would’ve been more realistic to have her be more independent and shoot maybe dump him when he proposed at her dad’s funeral?? I love the lengths she went to to save her daughter and made sure in the end to spend more time with her.

Catherine O’Hara was hilarious in this movie and at first, I felt like she was channeling Moira Rose but then I remembered that before Moira Rose was even a thing we had the eccentric Delia Deets and all her weird sculptures. She made me laugh the most with how over the top she was and her overall disgust with Rory. I guess it was nice she ended up with her husband but to be honest I wish she would’ve stayed alive because she’s funny and her death didn’t seem to add to the story but I will admit it was funny.

Astrid is played by Jenna Ortega who is a young actor who I really enjoy. I feel like even in films that I might not enjoy, she will give a good performance. She’s this angsty teen who is upset because she feels her mom has moved on too fast from her father who passed away. She was very smart but she got fooled by a little ghost man who unbeknownst to her, killed his parents. She almost loses her life trusting him and luckily her mom saves her and in the process, she gets to see her dad one more time. I loved that she shares the ability to see ghosts with her mom and how ghost is something they clash about but once her abilities kick in she believes her and their relationship starts to improve.

Michael Keaton goes all out as Betelgeuse and it always makes me laugh because when I think of films I first saw Keaton in it is usually Batman and Beetlejuice which were released about a year apart and the characters couldn’t be more different and before someone says it I am aware that just shows his range. Betelgeuse still seems the same from the last movie which is perfect because him being absolutely insane and delusional is why I love the character so much. I love how he always uses his powers in comical ways, like having a Betelgeuse baby that was biting everyone. I love this recurring theme of him never learning from his past mistakes as he tries to marry Lydia again and once again fails.

Also, shout out to Bob, and may you rest in peace. You were a highlight of this movie and didn’t deserve that painful death.

The thing that reunites the characters is the death of Charles Deetz and I was kind of shocked at how much they used the likeness of Jeffrey Jones throughout the film instead of just finding a way to remove the character or have him die and not see his corpse so much. The reason why it was shocking is because Jeffrey Jones was charged with Child Pornography in 2002 so I would’ve assumed that the film would’ve tried to stay away from either mentioning his character or at least do it a minimal amount but he kept coming up. Like the corpse thing was fine because the top half is gone but then we get an animation of him dying and the stuff at the funeral and whatnot and it felt like they were paying homage to him which did not need to be done. I think in light of the controversies they should’ve recast or at the very minimum not used his likeness.

I really liked the somber version of Day-o which is played at the funeral scene. That song is a part of one of the most iconic movie scenes in my opinion and I’m glad it makes its return. I do think it would have been cool to add more Harry Belafonte songs in this movie which made the original so fun.

There are obviously so many callbacks to the original which is nice for fans of that one. The worm comes back and with the recent success of Dune, I put 2 and 2 together that the worm is influenced by the worms from Dune. We see the car crash in the miniature model, The way Beetlejuice comes up from the miniature model, The wedding outfits from the original, and of course, the Handbook for the recently deceased to name a few. Even the underworld still has the quirkiness it had in the 80’s movie.

The pacing of this movie was weird becuase I felt it started off slow and then at the end really sped up and wrapped things up quickly. Two storylines in this movie that could’ve been more interesting but didn’t really go anywhere and got wrapped up so quickly were the bride and dead boy stories. There’s the dead boy who tries to lure Astrid and I must say I knew his parents were dead the moment they didn’t show their faces and once I saw the handbook I knew he was dead. Then we have Betelgeuse’s first wife you killed him and he also killed her who is looking for him throughout the movie leaving a trail of bodies. Both of these storylines were interesting but neither got time to really breathe and leave an impact and before you know it they were wrapping up. I felt it would’ve been better to maybe have one of these storylines not both because on top of those you also have the funeral,  the possible marriage, and the family drama that needed to be resolved and it started to feel like too much.

My favorite part of this movie was probably Delia and Betelgeuse. They are two characters who are just hilarious and Catherine Ohara and Michael Keaton both really leaned into these roles and delivered. With everything going on they remained a constant highlight and kept me laughing with how they dealt with the situations they were given.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t exactly deliver the charm of the original and just has too much going on. The cast was funny and I loved seeing the sets and jumping back into this world but the story felt rushed and didn’t give me a good reason as to why we needed to revisit these character