By Eileen Fortner, Contributor 

[Warner Bros. Pictures; 2024] 

Rating: 5/10

The most wonderful time of the year has officially come around! You guessed it: spooky season. The beloved fan favorite Beetlejuice directed by Tim Burton has come out with a sequel to the film, aptly titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and boy is this a win for all of my spooky season lovers.

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Ever since the initial teasing of this film in March 2024, fans had a wide range of emotions between excitement and annoyance. Although the initial response was rather mixed, many fans were very excited about the killer lineup of a cast. With Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara returning to their old roles, this was bound to be an interesting film. Younger fans were more interested in Jenna Ortega who was cast to be Lydia Deetz’s daughter.

The entirety of this film was a complete mystery. Why did Burton decide to make a sequel? What is the plot going to be? Needless to say, whatever the film had in store was going to be a surprise, for better or for worse. 

The plot of this film boils down to this: Lydia has a TV show and Charles passes away, pushing Delia, Lydia and Lydia’s boyfriend as well as Astrid her daughter to go back to their old home and mourn the loss of Charles. Through this, every character goes through their separate journeys (which are all rather random).

From the very beginning, Burton quite obviously kept things close to the original, which was a smart choice. This made the film nostalgic, seeing all of the similar features as depicted in the first film. This all happens mainly within the sets and lighting, specifically in the afterlife. I felt like I was watching a scene straight out of the original. The sets throughout were very interesting because some would point straight to the original: the attic and the afterlife. While other parts would nod towards the Broadway musical set, specifically the set Lydia does her TV show on. The sets and lighting throughout were all generally pretty good and drew the viewer’s eyes to them. 

One major downfall of this film is the cinematography and editing which were rather lackluster. The first film was pretty tightly shot with a lot of fun editing, using a lot of forced perspective with the model of the home. The original film’s cinematography was superior compared to the sequel. The editing was just meh, nothing stood out but nothing was horrible either. 

During the entirety of this film, I was unable to place why on earth this film was not hitting as hard as the first. There are several answers to this: the score, the writing and, quite possibly, the acting. The score of this film felt nonexistent! The original film has a lot of apparent scoring literally through the whole film. It was evident that Danny Elfman worked hard to match the score to the movement of the actors and such. However, in the sequel, there didn’t seem to be that Danny Elfman flair throughout. Aside from the score, the soundtrack was pretty awesome. I heard The Bee Gee’s “Tragedy” and immediately thought, ‘hey maybe I should give this film a chance.‘

As for the writing, which inevitably plays into the actor’s performance, both Beetlejuice and Lydia were done rather dirty. However, Delia was by far the funniest character in the film. She’s the sassy, badass Grandma that we wished we all had. Beetlejuice just wasn’t as funny as he had been before. The jokes were less vulgar and I don’t think I even chuckled at a joke.

All and all, this film was just okay. There are way worse sequels out there. However, this was the most random and yet creative sequel yet. There were like 20 storylines happening at the same time, luckily they all came to a close (phew!). There were a lot of experimental things that had me saying, ‘huh?‘ Like the weird animation of Charles was… a choice. By far the funniest part of this film was Burton turning Lydia into Zak Bagans from Ghost Adventures. 

This film was a letdown for me, but I also didn’t expect much as sequels like these never really seem to work out often. I am so glad this film came out in time for the spooky season because, now maybe, Spirit Halloween will carry a Beetlejuice baby figure!