Tim Burton fans rejoice as once again this man has once again made a masterpiece and that is the sequel to Beetlejuice: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. As a big fan of the first one it filled me with excitement and nerves thinking of what the sequel will be as it does have a lot to live up to along with will it give the first one more of a legendary status.

The short answer is yes now brace yourself and the juice is loose along with some spoilers of the movie so you have been warned! 

The story carries on decades after the first one where Lydia Deetz is an adult and has her own minion and just like Lydia herself that she doesn’t like her mum (stepmom in Lydia’s case) and it’s pretty weird seeing Lydia as an adult and hosts her own spooky show with her agent trying to push her to be good and to not have a breakdown as she sees flashbacks of Beetlejuice, a true PTSD simulator.

Before I move onto more of the story, the intro is a work of art which is riddled with nostalgia opening up with the same layout of the first one having a flyover of the town along with swapping from real life to the very same model of the town and a cheeky Easter egg of the car wreck off the bridge that caused the fatal deaths of the Maitland’s. Of course the audio is a redux of the original soundtrack by legendary composer Danny Elfman. I salute you! 

The film does have a special guest that is Danny Devito who is an undead janitor cleaning up the offices while swigging some bleach and then it get interesting as we meet some dismembered woman who is alive by the power of electricity as Devito’s floor cleaner hovers over some spilled water shocking a load of crates containing body parts. This part gets a bit gruesome and did make me a bit queasy because I don’t deal with gore well. This woman pulls herself together literally as her parts come to her and with the power of a staple gun she’s back in one. This kinda reminds me of a scene in American Horror Story which is a good thing but I wasn’t expecting this. This is the only major scene in the film that contains gore on this level which I’m glad as I don’t feel it fits with the whole beetlejuice film as there isn’t gore at all that I can remember in the first one. 

I’m not getting into detail on the whole film only some scenes which sticks out to me the most otherwise I’ll be writing all day.

Another big star we meet is Willem Dafoe who was a big Hollywood actor who lived dangerously by doing his own stunts and now is an undercover cop in the afterlife. Though the film has some corny scenes with him talking it makes you laugh as he’s gotta do stuff in style. 

Unfortunately Lydia’s dad isn’t in the film which turns out to be a pretty grim reason and spoiler alert: he’s dead, though a voice actor does replace him. It’s pretty grim what Jeffery Jones did (Charles Deetz) in real life as I wasn’t expecting that Google result. I was sad he only appeared vaguely in a few scenes for a very very short time, headless as he died of a shark attack, but he kinda deserves it so if this was Tim Burton’s way of saying fuck you to Jeffrey than that’s great. I don’t know what now makes it more of a twisted joke as there’s a kids choir singing the banana song (day-o)  by Harry Belafonte, not only as it’s an iconic song in the first film it’s also could be due to Jeffery being a nonce but who knows. The scene was magical and funny and now it’s even worse because he’s a dirty dirty man. 

More scenes when we finally get Beetlejuice summoned: Lydia’s agent  Rory thinks he’s not real and after Lydia finds an advertisement leaflet which her daughter Astrid finds in the loft with the iconic model which is home to our favourite ghost with the most! Rory chants our boy BJ back and some twisted therapy session begims where Michael Keatom works his magic to come back to life as if he’s 30 years younger, full of laughter and fear the boy has still got it!

The story thickens where this ghoul woman who is after Beetlejuice is a soul sucker and wants her wonderful husband back and this is where we also find out that BJ is one of the main admins for the undead with his army of Bobs in a call centre and bamboozles Bob to dress as Beetlejuice which ends badly and we all feel sad for Bob’s death. 

Astrid deetz ( Jenna Ortega) with her denial for the undead actually finds herself in a pickle. Finding love but all isn’t what it seems and in true horror style, she meets a boy and it’s too good to be true. I spotted this right away as he had a book of the recently deceased and yes he’s dead and what an absolute wanker he is! He pretty much tricks Astrid to go to the undead to find her dad who sadly is dead. A gullible girl she is as it turns out he’s used her to be mortal as guess what , Lydia finds out about this spooky house he lives in and yeah he killed his parents and wants to live to kill again because he died falling out of his treehouse….shame.

Just like an episode of EastEnders where there’s drama , laughter and tears Lydia tires to find her and promises she’ll marry beetlejuice who is also trying to be mortal to escape his crazy soul sucking bitch of an ex and while they are both wanted by the undead Willem Dafoe bootleg police academy. All we need now is the Benny Hill theme song but no we get a pissing disco train which I laughed hard at. 

What’s more of a dive into this film is lore and there’s actually a bit as we discover more of beetlejuice’s past in a witty comedian way told in a french voice over by bj himself and again it’s magical. 

The whole film is just a trip which will keep you on edge and laugh at the same time…we’ll most of the scenes.

Again I’m not going to say too much more as there’s still loads of scenes to talk about which includes the big final thing but I won’t discuss that as that needs to be witnessed in person , watch the film. The last 30 mins is just gold. 

So overall, the humor is still spot on , hell in some scenes it’s even funnier than expected in the first one. There’s more drama than an EastEnders episode and there’s more guest appearances and minor and more major stuff and props which appear which will make you smile, I think. This isn’t to mention how amazing Catherine O’Hara (Delia Deetz) nailed the role even more, she was more badass and still sassy and sophisticated

As I spoke before there is more gore , not a lot but the scenes at the start I wasn’t expecting but it does ease off and has that signature style like in the first one. Though the cast is older, for a film that’s over 30 years old it’s done well and Keaton hasn’t, he’s still a wizard. But in one scene he does look like Noel Fielding and that’s a compliment as I love him like a warm kitten.

I don’t expect there to be a follow up to this film as there’s no need for a beetlejuice 3. Two is enough for this legacy and I don’t think Tim will be interested in making a third one and that’s perfectly fine we don’t need a million films coming out and yes I’m looking at you fast & furious , the family is safe you are just greedy mr Diesel it’s a good job my car uses petrol * ba dum tsh. 

Anyway until next time don’t say beetlejuice three times unless you want loose juice everywhere and that’s a mess to clean!