Dark, macabre, surreal, and poetic—these are the words that pop up in our minds when discussing the works of director Tim Burton and his unique vision, which meander in the enchanting realm of gothic fantasy. Back in 1988, with his second feature film, Beetlejuice, the director showcased a beautiful, bold, vivid representation of his morbid aesthetic to the world, a movie that has since gained the status of a cult classic. Although the original story of Beetlejuice was conceptualized by horror novelist Michael McDowell and was much more sinister and violent than the movie adaptation, Burton had added the iconic comedic flair to the narrative, along with an unforgettable characterization of the titular ghost, which made the movie one of the best original horror classics.
Movies like Beetlejuice are most often driven by artistic endeavor, which is why a replication of its cinematic magic is next to impossible. Still, to attempt the impossible, Tim Burton is returning with a sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, thirty-six years after the release of the original movie. With a prolonged time gap such as this, viewers will surely need to jog up their memories on Beetlejuice, and we are happy to help.
Spoilers Ahead
Ghost Couple Gets Haunted By Humans
In the quaint, picturesque country town of Winter River, Connecticut, lovely couple Adam and Barbara Maitland arrive at their old school rustic house to spend the holidays. Their peace is occasionally hampered by their nosy neighbor, Jane, a realtor who is irritably eager to sell their house to cityfolk, saying that the house is too big for a childless couple. While the Maitland couple has indeed been trying to have a little one of their own for quite a while, there is no dearth of love between the two.
While venturing out of town, Adam and Barbara get into an accident as their car takes a fall off a small bridge, and upon returning, the couple start experiencing their reality a bit differently. Aside from being invisible in the mirror and to people outside and experiencing time dilation, the duo find out that any attempt to leave the house results in them being transported to a weird, deserted realm, which will later be revealed as the limbo known as Saturn, where strange sandworms move around in search of lost spirits. As Barbara stumbles upon a copy of “Handbook for the Recently Deceased,” the realization finally dawns upon them—they’d died during the unfortunate accident. Within a short period of their demise, Jane finds a buyer for the house—the socialite Deetz family, who waste no time to shift to Winter River from New York. Charles Deetz, a retired real estate agent, his obnoxious, postmodern art-loving wife, Delia, and Charles Emo, a goth trend-following teenage daughter from his first marriage, Lydia are the members of the microfamily.
Delia and her associate art aficionado, Otho, are overeager to transform the old school country house into a postmodern nightmare, although Charles and Lydia aren’t really supportive of the decision. As the prospect of their house going through a renovation starts troubling the ghostly couple Adam and Barbara, they decide to use the perks of their undead status—by trying to haunt the new residents. However, being invisible to the living, the novice ghosts aren’t able to do anything as their house gets completely restructured into an ugly, architectural nightmare.
The Netherworld and Betelgeuse
While searching for a possible way to drive off the human intruders in the guidebook, the ghost duo stumbles upon a leaflet of bio-exorcist Betelgeuse, who claims to have the ability to scare away humans. For the time being, they forget about it as they get distracted by the activities of the Deetz family. On the other hand, unlike her parents, Lydia is able to sense an otherworldly presence in the house and tries to open the attic room—where Adam and Barbara have been hiding since the arrival of the Deetz family. Desperate to get a solution to this mess, the Maitland couple creates a door to the Netherworld, the land of the departed, by following the instructions in the guide and moving to the other side. The duo reach an administrative office, where the spirits of the undead have gathered to share their grievances with their respective caseworkers. A number of gruesomely funky-looking spirits—Harry the Hunter, The Witch Doctor, and Char Man—are seen present, along with a plethora of spirits who didn’t find solace in the afterlife. From the receptionist of the Netherworld office, Adam and Barbara learn that they will need to stay in the house for the upcoming 125 years, and to find a solution to their human-related problems, they need to consult with Juno, their caseworker.
Reaching Juno, the Maitland couple asks for help. The caseworker instructs the couple to take care of the situation on their own by following the guidebook. However, just as Barbara mentions about Betelgeuse, Juno hurriedly stops her from saying his name—strictly forbidding them from ever summoning the bio-exorcist to their reality. Juno reveals that Betelgeuse, who can be summoned by merely calling out his name three times, used to be her assistant until he decided to go solo, and his extremely malevolent activities made him a threat both in the afterlife and the world of mortals. Juno also reveals that Betelgeuse has taken refuge in the miniature town model of Winter River Adam had created in their attic room, in the hopes of getting summoned by the couple and gaining his long-awaited freedom.
Adam and Barbara return to their house to once again make a silly attempt to threaten the new owners of the house, to no avail—and Lydia catches them red-handed. The teenager’s morbid curiosity with the departed ones and spirits gets piqued after realizing that she is able to see the ghosts of the former owners of their house and feels sympathetic about their predicament as she knows what a nuisance her father and stepmother can be. Lydia tries to convince Delia about the presence of ghosts in their house, but she simply shrugs off her concerns, considering it to be a product of her imaginative mind. Meanwhile, realizing nothing is going according to their plans, the ghost couple decides to ignore Juno’s warnings and summon Betelgeuse by calling his name three times and exhuming him from the miniature grave inside Adam’s town model.
Betelgeuse turns out to be an extremely unstable, chaotic, mischievous, and perverted ghost who had been trapped by his curse for centuries. To put his appearance and demeanor into perspective, Betelgeuse looks like the love child of the Joker and the entity from “The Mask.” The true identity of the manic spirit is not revealed, but by his own admission, he had seen the events of the Black Death transpire. Betelgeuse’s lecherous and crass activities lead the Maitland couple to immediately regret their decision of summoning him, and after leaving Betelgeuse in his miniature stature they return to their house in regular form. Keeping the uncontrollable spirit of the bio-exorcist away, the couple decide to take care of the Deetz situation on their own by using their powers to force the family members and a bunch of their art-aficionado guests to dance calypso during dinner. However, this move turns out to be a blowback to their intended plan, as Charles and Delia become excited to capitalize on the haunting and turn their house into a paranormal amusement park instead. Charles asks his former boss, Maxie Dean, to invest in this unique project of his, which he believes will be financially lucrative for them—but in order to convince Maxie, they need to show him solid proof of the existence of the ghosts. Otho, Charles, and Delia snoop around the attic room in search of the ghosts, and Otho gets his hands on the guidebook. The prankster Betelgeuse, who was still free, gives the Otho and Deetz families a good scare by taking on the appearance of a giant snake, but his antics go too far, resulting in Lydia getting upset as well. The Maitland couple trap Betelgeuse by once again calling his name three times.
A Final Struggle for Existence
After distracting Betelgeuse elsewhere, Juno decides to summon the Maitlands and gives them a piece of her mind for being extremely sloppy at their job of being ghosts, allowing Betelgeuse to return to the world and unknowingly letting Otho take the guidebook as well. Juno commands them to handle the situation and drive the Deetzes out of their house as soon as possible. In the meantime, Lydia makes a visit in the attic room, where she sees Betelgeuse trapped in the miniature town model. The loony spirit takes an interest in Lydia and tries to convince her to utter his names three times to get released, but realizing that Betelgeuse was responsible for the earlier chaotic situation, Lydia deems him too dangerous and refuses to release him. The Maitlands return, and Lydia shares her wish to join them by dying, but the couple advises her not to consider anything of that sort and share that they have decided to allow her family to stay.
Trouble arises when Charles invites Maxie and his wife to dinner to show him the proof of the ghost’s existence in their house, and following directives from the guidebook, Otho decides to summon the Maitland couple in front of them as proof. However, Otho’s misinterpreted rituals result in an exorcism instead, as the spirits of the Maitland couple start transcending. Fearing their final departure, a desperate Lydia decides to summon Betelgeuse, who agrees to help, on the condition that Lydia has to marry him. Right after getting released, wasting no time, the wayward wraith frees the Maitlands, terrorizes the present mortals, scares off Maxie, his wife, and Otho, and starts hastily arranging for his marriage with Lydia. Marrying a mortal will allow Betelgeuse to be forever free from his curse, and he summons a ghoulish minister to organize a dead wedding. After multiple attempts to stop Betelgeuse in vain, Barbara goes to the limbo dimension of Saturn to tame a Sandworm and uses it to send Betelgeuse back to his cursed existence.
After a while, the Maitlands and the Deetz are revealed to be living together in peace, with the ghosts and the humans having their separate sections of the house, which has been restored to its former state. Lydia is now like a daughter to the departed childless couple, who happily bear her parental responsibilities and occasionally entertain her to their ghostly groove. In the Netherworld, Betelgeuse arrives at the administrative office for his consultation, and while trying to pull a prank on a Witch Doctor, gets his head shrunk like the Hunter ghost.
What Can Be Expected From The 2024 Sequel?
The sequel installment of the first movie, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, takes place thirty-six years after the events of the first movie—the real life time gap between the two entries. As the trailers and updates from the sequel showcase, Lydia and her daughter, Astrid, will be at the forefront of the sequel, and compelled by a series of events, Lydia will be forced to summon the maniac spirit of Betelgeuse once again. We don’t know whether the Maitlands will be present this time around, but Lydia’s irritable stepmother, Delia Deetz, has been confirmed to play an important role in the story. Michael Keaton’s return as the unhinged titular ghost has kept fans expecting for the sequel entry, and hopefully the movie will do the character some justice. After all, right after Beetlejuice, Burton and Keaton had collaborated to breathe life into another gothic dream of the director in Batman (1989), so the duo have the justice part covered—if you get what we are trying to say.
