PG-13 | 1h 45m | Comedy, Kid, Horror | Sept. 6, 2024
In our American movies, we enjoy the concept of otherworldly situations—like the afterlife or the “Monsters, Inc” dream world—as being merely more mundane versions of earthly human life. Regardless that it’s another dimension, it’s all a profane, 1950s’ type, punch-the-time-clock factory or office setting, with clerks in green eyeshades checking accounts receivable; a bustling mail room; and janitors sweeping hallways.
Cartoons and comedies mostly do this, getting a lot of mileage out of the humorous aspects of revealing a lowly, humdrum existence behind the clouds of glory. In “Ghostbusters,” the titular crew chased ghosts for a living, eventually hired a secretary to handle the overbooking, and inadvertently landed themselves in the ghostbusiness.
The original “Beetlejuice” and its sequel, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” is based on this concept as well. It depicts an afterlife where, if you die, say, due to getting your head chomped off by a shark, you may find yourself standing in the admission-to-the-afterlife line, headless, needing a ticket to talk to an agent, like at the DMV.
‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’
Be careful you don’t say that name three times in a row because it’s an incantation that will summon Mr. Beetlejuice himself, that wisecracking demon (Michael Keaton). You don’t want that because he’s very annoying. You didn’t mind him in the first iteration because he was hysterical. This time around, less so, because the world-building has been done, and if there are no more surprises, then you get a bit of staleness and predictability, and all of that equals sequelitis.
Director Tim Burton expands on his 1988 high-camp comical ghost story. The proceedings apparently take place in Winter River, Connecticut, where one widowed Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder), formerly known as Goth Girl, is now a psychic mediator. She channels the spirit world on a Jerry Springer-like, exploitative TV reality show about the paranormal, called “Ghost House.” It’s produced by her utterly untrustworthy, slimy, narcissistic boyfriend Rory (Justin Theroux).
Now, Lydia’s husband Richard met his untimely demise on a trip to the Amazon. When we meet him later, he’s adorned like a Christmas tree, except instead of trailing tinsel, he’s got wriggling piranhas hanging off him.
Lydia and Richard’s teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is in full-on teen rebellion mode and is badly in need of a rumspringa regarding mom’s morbid fascination with the occult. A rumspringa is when Amish teens are encouraged to take a year or two off in order to give regular society a go: drinking in bars, and so on, so they can get some distance from their parents’ strict religion, so as to be able to choose it again—or not—of their own volition.
Grandma
Delia (Catherine O’Hara), Lydia’s narcissistic artist stepmom, is still with us. However, Lydia’s dad, Charles Deetz, ran afoul of a hungry shark (lotta death by fish in this family).Charles’s wake brings the dysfunctional family back together. Delia celebrates Charles at his wake by wrapping their stereotypical haunted-house-on-a-hill in see-through black gauze, a lá the landscape-and-architecture-fabric-wrapping artist Christo.
Astrid can’t take the weirdness anymore, and bicycles into town. After crashing through a fence and bouncing off the tree of his tree-house, she meets handsome but quirky teen, Jeremy (Arthur Conti). They set a Halloween night date. Keep an eye out for Jeremy’s slightly devious smile ...
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Betelgeuse)
Naturally, someone says the trickster demon’s name three times and *poof!* he’s baaaack!There’s a whole storyline about the corpse of Delores (Monica Bellucci, Tim Burton’s real-life partner), who staples bits of herself back together again, and who sets out to reclaim Beetlejuice as her husband. Like Harry Potter’s dementors, she sucks the souls out of people, such as the vertically-challenged, antifreeze-guzzling janitor (Danny DeVito), leaving them like shriveled-up balloons.
Also running around in the netherworld is a ghost detective named Wolf Jackson (Willem Dafoe). In life, he was a terrible actor. In the afterlife, with half his brain exposed, he’s still terrible. Dafoe is mildly funny portraying a terrible actor.
What’s Good
What Tim Burton always does well is capture the fun of children’s Halloween in distinctly American ways (what else would it be?). The camera swoops in and around and above a very Berkshires, Massachusetts-looking town, capturing the fun spookiness of glowing jack-o-lanterns, strings of lights, and costumed kiddies trick-or-treating.I have my doubts about kind monsters. Maybe. “Beauty and the Beast” features a kind monster. I’m all for turning our darker aspects brighter though. If that’s the message this film manages to encourage in children—fabulous.
However, I suspect that that positive effect might be overpowered by the sheer amount of un-dead, icky visuals, regardless of whether they’re presented humorously. I’m amazed at what kids today can stomach. In my day, kids were terrorized by the Wicked Witch of the West and the weird old lady in “Mary Poppins.” Now, 5-year-olds don’t blink an eye at things that are 10 times scarier.
There’s not much that’s really scary in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” but again, the ick-factor is high, and, call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think Burton’s stock-in-trade of ick-desensitization in child audiences is ultimately a good thing.
