Sep 86 min read

Film REVIEW: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) - ★★★★★

It’s showtime! The Juice is loose as Michael Keaton’s lairy demon returns after 36 years in the underworld.

From the cast, quotes, plot and new Beetlejuice SFX to Keaton’s wardrobe malfunction, here’s our complete guide to Beetlejuice 2.

Director: Tim Burton

Writer: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Seth Grahame-Smith, Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson.

Stars: Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, Willem Dafoe.

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Horror

Themes: Dark Comedy, Supernatural, Sequel

After a family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia's life is turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Astrid, accidentally opens the portal to the Afterlife.

A sequel to Beetlejuice (1988) and the second film of the Beetlejuice franchise.

The film received generally positive reviews from critics.

In Cinemas Now

MIX UP REVIEWS:

Stewart - ★★★★★

"Beetlejuice is the greatest film of all time. No doubt in my mind. I watched it endlessly as a kid and still love it to this day. The cartoon style, macabre humour, excellent performances - Michael Keaton on showstopping form, Catherine O'Hara OTT camp diva and an amazing score by Danny Elfman (which by the way I use in nearly every Mix Up Theatre show!).

So along comes the sequel! 36 years later! I'm always worried that a sequel like this might feel pointless but this embraces the spirit of the original with Keaton, O'Hara and of course the mighty Winona Ryder returning to their roles and knocking it out the park once again!

The humour is as daft and wacky as ever, special effects, make-up all on point and of course that score is brilliant once again. Jenna Ortega is a welcome addition to the family.

If there's any criticism is that it overpacks the story a bit too much and it works best when focusing on Beetlejuice and the Deetz's rather than all the new characters but the world building of the underworld is a lot of fun. Loved it!"

Have you seen it yet?

Beetlejuice 2 buzz - Why is everybody talking about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?

For 36 years, Beetlejuice was the world’s weirdest one-off. Released in 1988, this oddball horror-comedy from goth-cinema poster boy Tim Burton (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) smashed $75 million at the box office, won an Oscar and was catnip to kids in crow-black makeup.

But with the cast and director ducking calls for a sequel, Beetlejuice became a cult hero, rather than the franchise juggernaut it could have been, with Michael Keaton (Toy Story 3, Spider-Man: Homecoming) ’s gross-out ghoul spending the next three decades trapped in the afterlife.

“I truly never quite understood the success of the first one,” Burton told interviewer Lou Thomas. “It’s one of life’s beautiful mysteries.”

Now, wave your freak flag high as Beetlejuice 2 arrives.

“To bring Beetlejuice back is so good because people need to revisit weird, strange, off-putting stories again,” co-star Jenna Ortega (Iron Man 3) told Vanity Fair.

“We need to introduce the younger generation that’s always on the phone to new artistic and creative ideas. The weirder you get with it, the more people you can get to see it.”

Beetlejuice 2 backstory - Why has the new Beetlejuice movie taken so long?

While Beetlejuice himself has been stuck in the Netherworld, his film saga has been mired in development hell. After the original movie, the all-star cast were swamped with other offers, from Winona Ryder’s rise in Edward Scissorhands to Keaton caping up for 1989’s Batman (also directed by Burton).

As for the director, he was stumped as to how he could add to the story. “We talked about lots of different things,” he told Entertainment Weekly.

“That was early on when we were going, Beetlejuice And The Haunted Mansion, Beetlejuice Goes West, whatever. Lots of things came up.”

Then came the thunderbolt, as Burton saw the potential of a generational story inspired by his own transition “from cool teenager to lame adult, back and forth”.

As the director said in the same interview with Nick Romano: “That made it emotional, gave it a foundation. So that was the thing that really truly got me into it.”

Beetlejuice 2 plot - What happens in the new Beetlejuice movie?

Let’s catch you up. In the first movie, Adam and Barbara Maitland (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) drown when their car spins off the road. The couple return as ghosts to their stunning Connecticut home – but are left seething when the property is sold to real estate agent Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones), his sculptor wife Delia (Catherine O’Hara) and their teen-goth daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder).

In desperation, the Maitlands recruit Keaton’s freelance poltergeist Beetlejuice: a leering, belching, womanising barfly who promises to remove the Deetzes but proves impossible to control. In the final scenes, the two families agree to co-exist, while Beetlejuice is exorcised and left for eternity in Hell’s waiting room, where a witch shrinks his head.

Set 36 years later, Beetlejuice 2 sees the Deetz clan return to the original house after an “unexpected family tragedy”.

Lydia is now a mother to a rebellious emo daughter of her own (in the form of Jenna Ortega’s Astrid). And in the Beetlejuice 2 trailer we see Ortega’s character accidentally open the portal to the afterlife, releasing Keaton’s troublemaker for round two.

“The anchor for me is what happened to Lydia, what happened to the Deetz family?” Burton told BFI.

“What happened to the living people? What happens to people we see at one stage in their life, then you see them many years later? This is what interests me. This is what gives it an anchor for me. Where are these people after 35 years?”

Cast of Beetlejuice 2 - Who stars in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?

After dodging them for a lifetime, it seems Michael Keaton has finally made peace with his two iconic roles. Last year, he showed up as a silvery Bruce Wayne in The Flash (“You wanna go nuts? Let’s go nuts”). Now, the 72-year-old slips back into the zebra-stripe suit like it’s 1988 all over again.

“He just got back into it," Burton told EW. “It was kind of scary for somebody who was maybe not that overly interested in doing it. It was such a beautiful thing for me to see all the cast, but [it was] sort of like demon possession, he just went right back into it.”

Catherine O’Hara (Home Alone series) reprises her role, while we’re told sparks will fly in the mother-and-daughter clash between a returning Winona Ryder and Jenna Ortega.

“I wouldn’t say Astrid is bright and sunny at all,” says the Wednesday star, “but any kid who becomes a teenager wants to be removed from their parents. I think they instantly just fight whatever it is that their parent loves. I’m not wearing pink and a cheerleader, but I am a little bit against my mom’s history or past. We butt heads quite a bit.”

New cast members include Justin Theroux (Iron Man 2, Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi), Monica Bellucci (Spectre, The Sorcerer's Apprentice), Arthur Conti and Willem Dafoe (Finding Nemo, Spider-Man: No Way Home) .

“I play a police officer in the afterlife, so I'm a dead person,” the Poor Things star told Variety.

“And in life I was a B-movie action star, but I had an accident and that's what sent me to the other side. But because of my skills, I became a detective character in the afterlife.”

Beetlejuice 2 trivia - What's a fun fact about Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?

Michael Keaton is a Hollywood heavyweight, but even he had to back down when debating Beetlejuice’s outfit with four-time Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood.

“Beetlejuice has to have a striped suit," Atwood told ComicBook.com. "It's like Alice in Wonderland needs a blue dress. Strangely, Michael thinks the burgundy tux is the quintessential Beetlejuice costume, not the striped suit. But the world happens to disagree with him, so it's a funny thing.”

Beetlejuice 2 practical effects - How good will the new Beetlejuice look?

Practical effects are back in a big way. Keaton has praised Beetlejuice 2 for taking a practical approach to the movie whose effects won the Best Makeup Oscar in 1988.

"It had to feel handmade,” the actor told People, while hinting that Beetlejuice 2 will include a scene featuring a room full of shrunken heads.

“What made it fun was watching somebody in the corner actually holding something up for you, [or] to watch everybody in the shrunken head room and say, ‘Those are people under there, operating these things, trying to get it right’. It's the most exciting thing when you get to do that again after years of standing in front of a giant screen, pretending somebody's across the way from you.”

Beetlejuice 2 age rating - Who can watch Beetlejuice 2?

The age rating is 12A, Beetlejuice 2 is more horror-comedy than slasher or chiller. The vibe is definitely macabre, while Keaton’s madcap ghoul is smutty and his transformations are liable to make you jump out of your skin before collapsing in laughter.

Beetlejuice 2 is in cinema's now, the big screen and surround sound can set the juice loose. We’ve waited 36 years for the return of the hellraiser whose antics could wake the dead, and you won’t believe what Tim Burton has done.

“It’s a strange, strange new world,” the director told The Times – and you’re all invited.

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