Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

September 6 – 17

12 Days of Beetlejuice!

7:00 pm nightly
1:30 pm matinees Sunday
PG — 1hr 44min
2024 ‧ Horror / Comedy

Back in 1988, Beetlejuice was a comedy, a ghost story, a high-camp horror film, and a macabre funhouse ride, all driven by a new kind of palm-buzzer freak-show prankishness. If you are a fan of the original Beetlejuice, I’ve got good news. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is actually a continuation of the first film, both stylistically and storywise. Burton’s vision from 1988 remains fully intact. If anything, he has expanded on world-building. This gleefully zany farce is one of Burton’s most enjoyable films, and a welcome return to his own brand of oddball creepiness

The Maitlands (Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin) from the original have moved on. The Deetzs, who bought the house haunted by them decades ago, though, are still around. Lydia (Winona Ryder), whom we last saw as a sulky goth teen, has parlayed her abilities as a medium into a hosting gig on a show vaguely recalling Travel Channel’s The Dead Files, complete with night vision camera footage of her investigating paranormal activities. Meanwhile, little has changed in the afterlife –  even sets from the first film have been replicated. The hallway and waiting area are the same as you remember, albeit with different dead people passing through. Self-proclaimed “Bio-Exorcist” Betelgeuse (Keaton) is still up to no good, scheming for a way to return to life by marrying Lydia.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Is a welcome jolt of the old Tim Burton that finds Burton and much of the previous cast getting weird, gross, and, yes, goth in both an idyllic New England town and a gleefully bureaucratic afterlife. The film manages to avoid the feeling that its only obligation is to dutifully run through everything familiar one more time. Instead, watching it is a small but significant relief, like reconnecting with an estranged friend and finding out that you still get along after all — and for more reasons than just shared history, back when you were both obnoxious little goth girls. Yes, Betelgeuse is back from the dead. Or rather, Betelgeuse is still dead, but he’s back, anyway.