“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is a horror comedy released Sept. 6 and directed by the gothic horror genius Tim Burton. It is the sequel to its older sibling, “Beetlejuice,” a darkly comedic tale of what lies after death released in 1998. The original film follows married couple Adam and Barbara Maitland accidentally drowning to death, finding themselves stuck to haunt their house for the next 125 years. However, a new eccentric Deetz family, consisting of adventurous businessman Charles, self absorbed artist Delia, and their very goth daughter named Lydia, have taken over the house.
“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” takes place three decades later with Lydia using her supernatural power of seeing ghosts to be a reality TV star, and she is now a widow left with her stepmom Delia and environmentalist daughter Astrid Deetz, who doesn’t believe in ghosts at all, creating a rocky relationship with her mother. Lydia’s father dies at the beginning of the movie, which leads to the whole family moving back to the old house in the original movie to hold his funeral. At the old house Lydia is terrified, sensing Beetlejuice’s presence, while Astrid starts to fall for a town boy named Arthur. While all this is happening, Beetlejuice is plotting to avoid getting his soul sucked from his ex wife Delores, who is causing havoc in the underworld trying to get her revenge on him.
The sequel is very funny with many dark humorous scenes about the afterlife and “Beetlejuice;” however, the plot is full of many characters that left me confused with their actions. First off, I found the “twist” of Arthur being dead very obvious from the second I saw his parents not turning to acknowledge him once in the movie, and the only one he interacted with in the whole movie is Astrid, who inherited her mom’s superpower for seeing ghosts. After you find out he’s dead, it’s easy to piece together that he’s going to be evil because there needs to be some conflict that keeps Astrid stuck in the underworld for Lydia to team up with Beetlejuice to save her.
Second, Beetlejuice’s ex wife is depicted as this powerful demon that even Beetlejuice seems to be afraid of, with many scenes of her sucking the souls out of other ghosts showing how scary she is, but the second she faces Beetlejuice it is way too late in the movie with no tension happening between them because she immediately gets eaten by a sandworm. I mean are you kidding me? The alleged face off of Delores and Beetlejuice was hinted at throughout the whole movie, and when they finally meet, nothing happens? I see the character of Delores as wasted money and potential that the writers tried and failed to add to the franchise.
Lastly, Astrid finally sees her father again after the six years he’s been dead and somehow after one conversation with him, all the problems Astrid and her mother have been having this whole movie are suddenly fixed. I found that whole wrap-up to be one too rushed considering it didn’t even last for 10 minutes of screen time, and also Lydia didn’t even find Astrid till she found her father. Meaning that their growth of reconnecting with each other as mother and daughter felt artificial since they didn’t spend a lot of time in the movie working together and at most times were at odds with each other.
Overall, if you ignore the very annoying plot holes of the wife and reuniting with the dead father, it is a very humorous dark and spooky movie to watch with other fans of the original “Beetlejuice” movie. If you are someone who is just watching this for the first time without prior knowledge of the original movie, plot wise you are not going to have a fun time after watching this movie. But if you are a fan of the original and want to relive some nostalgia, go see “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” at your nearest theater or wait for it’s streaming Nov. 25 on Max.
