Photo: Warner Bros.
Review - Tim Burton's ghostly 1980s hit returns in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. But has the 36-year wait been worth it?
Burton's audience was earned with a string of uniquely distinctive hits in the 80s and 90s - Gothic fables including Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Alice in Wonderland.
But it's been a while since his last big-screen success, so now he's turned to a belated sequel to his first big hit - Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
He was like a solitary, genius kid playing with toys of his own creation, and endlessly devising spooky Halloween stories to go with them.
And the most Tim Burton movie of all was the 1988 hyperactive ghost comedy Beetlejuice.
It was funny, it was sweet-natured, it was endlessly inventive, even if by the end the film Beetlejuice, a brilliant Michael Keaton, started to wear out his welcome a bit.
But it was loved for decades - thanks in part to endless repeats on TV - and the fans kept calling for a follow-up. So finally, here it is.
We forget that the original Beetlejuice was neither written nor produced by Burton. He just directed it - though he very much made it his own with his soon-to-be trademark blend of the macabre and the childlike.
The sequel went through several changes of writing teams, all trying to retain as many elements of the original as possible.
Burton kept the three most obvious actors - Keaton, of course, the permanently over-the-top Catherine O'Hara - once the mother, now the grandmother of the haunted family - and Burton's old muse Winona Ryder as the grown-up version of Goth teenager Lydia.
Lydia is now a mother herself - to the even more gloomy teen, Astrid - while holding down a job as the host of a paranormal reality TV show. What else would she do?
Astrid is played by a recent Burton favourite Jenna Ortega - they met when he was directing her TV show Wednesday.
The family are invited back to the old, haunted house when Grandpa is eaten by a shark.
Grandma organises the funeral as a tribute to herself - there's a lot of self-absorption in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Meanwhile, Lydia and Astrid discover some old, unpleasant memories up in the attic. Don't say Beetlejuice's name three times, you may remember.
But of course, Astrid is both a stroppy teenager, open to any excuse to annoy her mother, and also a post-millennial kid who doesn't believe all that Gen X superstitious nonsense.
Third time's the charm, and up pops our old friend.
Beetlejuice may be a little frayed round the edges - though he always was. But he's still keen on getting his old flame Lydia up the aisle, then down to the Afterlife as Mrs Beetlejuice.
Despite the wishes of Lydia's actual fiancé, the oily Justin Theroux.
As further proof that the course of true love never runs smooth, it seems Beetlejuice also has a furious ex, played by Monica Bellucci.
She still wants Beetlejuice in the worst way, it seems. Their relationship isn't particularly clarified when Beetlejuice explains it entirely in obviously dubbed Italian.
But frankly we never used to go to a Burton movie because the plot made much sense.
The appeal was always the details - like the endlessly inventive ways the dead inhabitants of the Afterlife met their particular demises.
But Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is also evidence that time marches on, and what was once novel, creepy fun back in 1988 is a bit retro and cheesy in 2024.
It also reminded me that my affection for the original Beetlejuice was lukewarm at best - it was never my favourite Tim Burton film. And while I have residual affection for many of the cast of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, I prefer them in other things.
I'm certainly not clamouring for a Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
