Beetlejuice is back

BY BROOKLYN MCKINNEY / Multimedia Journalist

The ghosts and sandworms of the past came back to haunt Beetlejuice fans in theaters on Sept. 6th. 

In the highly anticipated sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” familiar faces from the original cast remained such as Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara as Lydia and Dehlia Deetz. 

And of course, the iconic Michael Keaton. His riveting performance always makes us love the one and only green-haired “bio-exorcist” hellion, and the recent sequel is no exception.

There are spoilers ahead, so those who have not seen the film yet beware.

In a tragic twist, Charles Deetz died when his plane crashed into the ocean on the way back from a bird-watching expedition and a shark bit him in half. 

This is comically portrayed in heavily animated stop motion, as a nod to Burton’s early career in animation and involvement in films such as “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Corpse Bride” and “Frankenweenie.”

Many sources including Entertainment Weekly have confirmed that this scene was directly inspired by Tim Burton’s worst nightmare.

Ironically, just moments before Dehlia Deetz breaks the news to her daughter Lydia, she is hosting her top hit TV show, Ghost House with Lydia Deetz. 

This is the part of the film that lost me and moved at an excruciatingly slow pace. 

First of all, the Lydia I know would have never wanted to profit off her supernatural encounters. 

Now instead of a goth girl with her ghost friends and a camera in tow, we have a spineless, neglectful mother who can’t stick up to a toxic TV producer boyfriend. 

If I’m being honest, the dark humor during her set kind of made up for it, but if “Roy” guilt-tripped Lydia or put on his mask of ridiculously fake empathy one more time I was going to throw up.

Right as I consider ditching the movie entirely, Beetlejuice is his usual dead self, lingering in Lydia’s life with a larger-than-life personality. 

Of course, there are also some new additions to the cast that drive the plot.

There is Beetlejuice’s ex-wife Delores, who he chopped up into tiny pieces with an axe upon learning that she was part of a soul-sucking death cult and poisoned him on their wedding night. 

In hot pursuit of Beetlejuice to claim her revenge, “Tragedy” by the Bee Gees plays in the background, in which Monica Bell is seen gathering her various body parts and stapling them back together in a somewhat gruesome display.

This song and her character have become a huge hit on TikTok, and I personally cannot wait to see all of the Delores costumes on Halloween this year.

Beetlejuice hilariously tells Delores that she looks “so put together” upon meeting face to face for the first time since the incident.

There is also Astrid portrayed by Jenna Ortega, her rebellion fueled by a deep dislike for her mother Lydia’s boyfriend and televised ghost show. 

Ortega overall did a great job of conveying the teenage angst of this character. In fact, it felt similar to other roles she has done in the past such as Wednesday from the “Addams Family” spin-off “Wednesday” on Netflix. 

Ortega’s character Astrid develops a budding romance with a ghost after riding away from Charlie’s funeral on a bike and crashing into his backyard fence. After Roy guilt trips her mother into accepting his unromantic and tone-deaf funeral marriage proposal, she just needs to get away.

On Halloween night, her ghost boyfriend tricks her into opening a portal into the afterlife, trading her life for his. 

Lydia is desperate to find Astrid and promises to marry Beetlejuice so he can escape the clutches of his soul-sucking ex-wife.

Overall, the sequel is a modern parallel to the original. 

A child with a crazy mother and absent father (except in this case, Astrid’s father is physically absent as in dead) befriends at least one ghost haunting a house and is deceived by one of the walking dead. 

And with that, the cast-lists’ journey into the afterlife begins. 

The set was captivating the entire way, with more horrors than ever while still keeping the whimsical magic of the original.

Lydia is reunited with her entire family in the land of the dead. This includes her mother, who killed herself while filming some kind of melodramatic ceremony involving snakes to “honor” Charles’ death.

Dehlia Deetz is down after two snakes bite her in the throat, and upon arriving immediately goes into hysterics which is pretty on brand for her. She claims that “there must be a mistake” because the snakes weren’t supposed to be venomous.

Perhaps the most magical scene of them all was the recreated wedding between Lydia and Beetlejuice. 

He storms into the church during what was supposed to be Lydia and Roy’s Halloween wedding and has a hungry sandworm eat both of their evil exes before sucking the original audience of famous influencers into their phones forever. 

Beetlejuice is less of a red flag than Roy because he actually respects Lydia’s wishes for a private ceremony.

When Beetlejuice serenades her in the iconic red dress from the 1988 film and they dance, levitating into the air I honestly started to think that her ex-fiance Roy was so unlikeable that I actually wanted them to get married (if not for the creepy stalking and over 100-year age gap).

While nothing could ever compare to the original, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” had just enough macabre humor, horror, and nostalgic magic to be the ultimate sequel. I’m eager to find out if Tim Burton intends to end his massive cliffhanger with a third film, but I’ll let you see that for yourselves.

If I had to guess, it would probably be called “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”.

For more information, go to: https://screenrant.com/beetlejuice-2-charles-death-scene-burton-callback-writer-response/, or https://ew.com/charles-deetz-beetlejuice-beetlejuice-fate-inspired-by-tim-burton-nightmare-exclusive-8706530.