Review of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, directed by Tim Burton

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

For three years I worked professionally as a film critic, and while going to all of the film festivals and interviewing directors and actors was cool for a while, but I wanted to reclaim my time and watch movies I wanted to watch. Sometimes watching all of the new releases is great, and behind ahead of the curve, but I feel like I was falling so behind on movies I was genuinely excited about.

So I quit and decided to focus on this blog, and fell back more into literary criticism. I also randomly fell into a period of unemployment because of unexpected circumstances, and I took a long and hard look at my finances and realized I had enough to take time off. I did end up doing that, traveled for a bit, applied to jobs, and found myself working on the blog now more than ever.

When I was putting out the grind of job applications, which really feels like a full time job in itself, I was finding different ways to unwind. I’ve been watching a ton of movies I typically don’t go for, as I’ve been trying to diversify the kinds of content I’m consuming in my daily life.

One of my core childhood memories and trauma is that when I was really little, my future brother-in-law would play scary movies for my sister and I. I was like five and watching the Star Wars movies, and on the horror end, we would be watching things like Scream and Beetlejuice. I clearly remember Beetlejuice specifically because I cried out of fear at Michael Keaton’s character.

It was with that in mind that I procrastinated watching the recent follow-up. But once it was added on Netflix, I knew I wanted to watch it at least once, so I forced myself to press play on one lonely Thursday morning and sat down before I did my job applications for the day.

Here’s my review!

Years after the events of Beetlejuice, Lydia finds herself back in the same town with her daughter, and the same old haunts are still there.

This movie takes place decades after the events of Beetlejuice, as it is now 2024 and Lydia, a mom and widow, has her own talk show called Ghost House. Her husband died while voyaging in the Amazon, and her daughter, Astrid, doesn’t talk to her after the fact. It doesn’t help Astrid thinks her mother is a little nutty and can’t actually sees ghost.

Things later on are foreshadowed when Lydia, while hosting the show live on television, sees Betelgeuse out in the audience. She freaks out and has to take a break, and we learn that the producer of the show, Rory, is also her boyfriend. He seems like such a tool from the beginning, but more on that later.

Dahlia, her stepmother from the previous mother, reaches out to let Lydia know that her father is dead after a plane crash. He was eaten by a shark in a fascinating sequence, and they pick up Astrid (who’s bullied in school) and head back to Winter River.

In the underworld, Betelgeuse’s ex-wife Delores has broken free of her confines and is sucking the souls of the dead out in her pursuit to find him. Wolf Jackson, a former actor who died and turned into a detective, tells Betelgeuse what’s going on, and he seems unconcerned. Turns out they got married during the Black Plague and she’s who killed him.

Back in the world of the living, Rory proposes and Lydia agrees, while Astrid goes out and accidentally runs into a boy named Jeremy who vibes with her immediately. When Astrid goes to hang out with Jeremy at night, she realizes he’s dead, and he tells her he wants to go beyond the world of his house and treehouse.

Lydia learns who Jeremy is back home: he killed his parents brutally and died falling from his treehouse when the cops came to get him. She runs to save Astrid, but Astrid has agreed to go into the afterlife with him because he says he only wants to live again—and she can meet her father is she goes.

When they get there, she discovers she was tricked and he exchanged his life for hers. She’s dead, and Lydia, in the real world, asks Betelgeuse for help. She agrees to marry him for his help, and Wolf Jackson realizes what’s happened pretty quickly and sends his men in, kidnapping Bob, his best employee, but Delores kills Bob by stealing his soul.

Lydia manages to nab Astrid right before she has to get onto the soul train to the beyond, and they land in the desert with sandworms. Turns out her dead husband is working that day in the afterlife, and he pulls them out before they’re devoured. But in the real world, Delia dies, as the asps she bought for a mourning ceremony were actually poisonous.

She wants to find her husband in the afterlife and ends up asking Betelgeuse for help. Betelgeuse prevents Jeremy from going to the real world, then Richard helps the ladies escape back into reality. Astrid tells her mother she was sorry she didn’t believe her, then they go to the church for Lydia and Rory’s wedding that night (turns out he invited a bunch of influencers and executives).

Betelgeuse then crashes the wedding, injects Rory with a truth serum, forcing him to admit he was a gold digger basically, and then proceeds to have an epic wedding song with Lydia as they dance around the chapel. But as the big moment arrives, Wolf shows up with his men. They’re no match for Betelgeuse, and Delores then rolls up looking for revenge.

Astrid summons a sandworm to eat her and Rory, then reveals she knows the marriage contract is void. They force Betelgeuse back into the afterlife, and Wolf, now unfrozen with his guys, takes Dahlia back to the afterlife too. After the events of this night, Lydia decides to end her show and reunites with Astrid fully as a mother. However, she’s still having dreams of Betelgeuse at night.

Overall Thoughts

This movie was such a fun mash up of genres, that’s for sure. I was not expecting a mashup of animation, the weirdly gothic scenes that took place during the Black Plague, and then Betelgeuse’s musical numbers. I found myself laughing more than expected at those dancing numbers.

I feel like this movie is very camp, and you can’t take it too seriously. Sometimes movies don’t need to be serious in order for you, as a viewer, to enjoy it. I usually enjoy harder and more serious movies, and while this one has its flaws (I think the plot was very rushed and relying on nostalgia in certain parts), it’s a good time.

Go watch it if you’re interested! It’s now available on U.S. Netflix for some time for those with a subscription. It’s definitely a good Friday night movie to watch with a significant other or a group of friends.

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