WARNING: HELLA SPOILERS

It’s not just millennials that Beetlejuice came back for. The necromancy of Beetlejuice is well-suited to a generation with disdain for perfection. Still the movie had big cultish shoes to fill.

Did it nail it?

The goal of the movie seemed fulfilled even from the opening scene. It was pure nostalgic escapism, dipping into a world we thought otherwise closed, until death, since the original movie released three decades ago. The opening credits open up on the the real town, as opposed to the sweeping view of the model in the original movie, a perfect way to wink that this sequel is the same/same, but different.

Peeking into the attic is no longer exclusive. It’s prime time television. And Barbara and Adam found a “loop-hole” that let them cross over the rainbow bridge for good. (Though its more likely Tim Burton’s would be black and white striped and swirled).

Through introducing a slew of new characters, Burton doesn’t just pull on the nostalgic strings in our brains. What he’s doing is what most of our favorite film-makers end up doing. He’s bulding a universe.

Familiar faces and new recruits flood the purple-lit Burton-verse. Thirty years later, Lydia’s daughter gets to do what Lydia wanted, but had yet to achieve.

See beyond the veil… one that only Tim Burton could have designed.

Jenna Joins the OGs

Hand-picking Jenna is, of course, a flawless move. She resonates with the new generation and fits the mold of the “milleni-old.”

Plus, she’s latina, giving a little more representation to the Burton-verse that he’d previously been criticized for lacking. Her test run in Wednesday (come on, we all knew it) came up aces. It wasn’t her that ran out of steam in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

BJBJ reunites Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara.

Instead of a low-budget commercial and flyers that felt familiar to pre-Y2K audiences, the sequel has Beetlegeuse burst into iPhone screens like malware pop-ups.

The tech updates in BJBJ are subtle. Burton and Keaton very openly agreed it would be best for the movie to be mostly handmade.

It did feel right in many ways.

Stop motion was the perfect way to watch Charles Deetz (kind of) survive a plane crash. So, too, was it satisfying to see the shriveled skin of Danny DeVito squelch on the floor.

This is the type of world that movie-goers have been missing since Marvel took over cinema. Beetlejuice’s revival isn’t a no-brainer cash grab at the expense of deflated tricenarians. This is the necromancy of a passion project. This is a cult awakening.

What about the plot though?

Tim looked to some undeniable icons to make their disfigured debut in his beloved underworld. With all these ghouls running amok, the plot felt disentangled at times.

The biggest internet gripe was too much Monica Bellucci. As Tim’s lover, of course she got screentime.

Though it may have been perceived excess, it offered more than just a little to the plot. It gave us a new perspective to feel about our titular tyrant.

DELORES
is from the latin dolor
or pain and sorrow

The sequel deliciously deliver a Beetlejuice origin story, in which Delores further proves her importance to the plot.

No, the real lost plot was Willem Dafoe’s character. Albeit a clever and delightful manifestation of his post-humous character, the movie would have hit the swirling hypnotic mark it set out for.

This is the afterlife in high definition

Still, there seems to be a method to every step Burton makes from a cinematic standpoint. The name Delores itself is rooted in the latin dolor–pain and sorry. Watching Delores close in on her third soul-to-suck offered an intrinsic sense of crescendo. From my own seat in the theatre, I thought, this is the third one, it must be her final. And when she bust into the wedding, a scorned lover of a scorned lover, she further earns her thick black and white Burton-verse stripes.

Astrid’s meet-cute, initially slightly cringe, comes full circle.

Delightful details were everywhere, like on the platform of the “Soul Train.” The party sequence showed us a freakishly familar train platform. That is, if your destination is Elysian Fields, The Pearly Gates, or the Hereafter.

The extra character manifestations of death are the easter eggs Burton fans come for. The tongue in cheek characters further reveal just how hands-on and creative this film must have been to make.

A hellish dreamscape

The first time seeing the sequel, for OG BJ fans, is a heavy page to turn. It’s been more than three decades since he last tried to take a child bride. It is safe to say all viewers are now new people. We are all returning again to contemplate death with this silly ass Italian demon. 

All the threads of the sequel tie up nicely in a dance number, offering the familiar pattern on a beloved story. We get another wedding and another bust in by the Sandworm.

Is it gratuitous? Too on the nose? Is the entire movie? 

One way or the other, it cements Tim Burton as a Hollywood Hero. He got his sequel, with the original cast, and he got his star. 

At the Walk of Fame ceremony, Winona says she felt seen as a weird little girl in the original movie. Could it be that the oddities in all of us felt more accepted? Did we feel this when we went into this world he created? Does it feel a little better to draw a door and escape? Does it feel a little better to imagine someplace other than this life?

Like Bob, it’s probably impossible for any of us to admit: death scares us. Life hurts. The moral of the sequel is then, in life and the movies, horror and humor go hand-in-hand. Sometimes you just have to sit back and laugh.